This content is locked. Please login or become a member.
Culture-Driven Transformation Model (CDT)
Over some of my experiences in the SEAL teams and our post 9/11 transformation and being in a constant state of change, I was able to leverage some of those principles as an entrepreneur in the business world and rapid-growing companies, high-growth organizations also faced with a lot of dynamic change, both internally due to a doubling in size and growing pains and whatnot, but also companies that have been in even faster-changing industries. So those two things combined have put me in a position as a business leader to figure out what leading change means in the modern 21st-century environment. And so what I had to do after a series of costly mistakes of course, upfront, was to back up a little bit and say, I’m making the same mistakes that a lot of organizational leaders are making. I am forgetting about the foundational elements of culture, core values, really defining mission and vision. And so you can emotionally connect people behind that mission narrative. Much of the global workforce can be defined as disengaged. So you really have to focus on culture and values and work environment and purpose because that is what today’s workforce cares about deeply. And if you cannot articulate that and define it and ingrain it in everything you do, you’re probably going to have some disengaged team members who will not help you fulfill mission success. So I developed what I call the CDT model or the ‘Culture-Driven Transformation’ model and there are six steps.
Step 1: Perform a culture diagnostic.
First step really is to perform a culture diagnostic analysis so to speak. So you’re essentially auditing your existing culture. I’ve done this in my own companies. I’ve helped other organizations do this. It’s not just about understanding what our culture is, but what does it need to be? Many organizational cultures aren’t by design. They come about haphazardly through years of rituals, experiences, mindsets, and behaviors of people within the organization. But organizations today that get it are, if they haven’t done it already, are pumping the brakes and saying, we really need to define who we are as an organization.
We did the same thing in the SEAL teams. You think our Navy SEAL ethos came about in the late seventies or late sixties, it did not. It came about in 2005 when we’d been moving at the speed of war in these post 9/11 conflicts for four years. And we realized we haven’t really defined on paper, who we are, what is our culture, what is our mission, our vision, what are our core values? And if you don’t have those in any organization, how do you make decisions about who you bring into that culture? How does that culture and those foundational values define the decisions that you make, whether that be a partnership decision, to hire, anything. It really should drive everything an organization does.
So when you can audit the culture you’re going to be able to identify the strengths that can be prime movers of change, and then also identify the weaknesses that are going to stand in the way of your transformation efforts. Sometimes those are behavioral, structural, or people problems that need to be identified and fixed before you can move on to the latter phases of culture-driven transformation.
Step 2: Perform a team engagement audit.
The next step is to also do a team engagement audit. I always jokingly say that, kind of being serious, but jokingly say that one of the great things about the SEAL teams is we have 100% employee engagement, all are emotionally connected behind our mission narrative. But according to global Gallup research from last year, employee disengagement is at 67%. Only 15% of the workforce can be defined as engaged. Those who are emotionally connected to their work they know how their work matters day in and day out. They have the elite go above and beyond attitude. They help their peers in doing their work. They take on roles and responsibilities outside of their own job descriptions. Leaving 18% who are actively disengaged and actually working against your organization.
Step 3: Define the mindsets and behaviors that drive results.
The next step is to define the mindsets and behaviors that will drive the results that you want to get. And there’s a great book that I love called ‘Change The Culture, Change The Game’ by Roger Connors and Tom Smith, and the foundational piece of this book it’s all about driving a culture of trying to achieve 100% accountability is based on their, what they call a results pyramid. So in that pyramid, there are four layers. At the very top, there’s the results that you’re getting, and there’s the results that you want to be getting, your renewed vision for growth or transformation or whatever it might be. Underneath the results are the actions that people need to take proactively to get those desired results. The third layer is the beliefs and mindsets that people need to really embody so that they take those actions proactively to get those results. And the bottom is the cultural experiences that either need to be instilled or even manufactured in an organization over time so that people start to really embody those beliefs, it permeates the entire organization. It’s not just a senior leadership thing anymore. It must be embodied by all.
And so you really need to have an understanding of: Here’s where we need to go. Do I, first of all, as a senior leader, embody the correct mindset to take us from here to here, because I first have to embody that mindset before I can really engage people behind that narrative. It’s the same thing I had do when I left my corporate finance job to join the Navy, to try out for the most challenging special operations training and selection program in the world. I had to go through a total mindset transformation to fulfill that renewed vision and eliminate every distraction that stood in the way of achieving that goal.
And it’s the same thing with business leaders and managers. They need to eliminate those distractions that will get in the way. They’ll distract them from filling mission success. But also, the more they’re distracted, the more the team is going to be confused about, are we really heading in this direction? Are we going in this direction now? Is there course correction that’s happening that we’re not aware of? So it really starts with leadership mindset transformation, and then all must eventually embody that. And those that eventually can’t can be given the opportunity to have a career somewhere else.