Week 3: Corporate Culture, Psychological Safety & Core Values

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In order to develop a solid work environment with the ability to attract and retain top talent, business leaders must learn to create a winning Corporate Culture, implement Psychological Safety in the workplace & lead the business with clearly-defined Core Values. In this article, JSuccess Experts share their expertise on these topics.

 

CORPORATE CULTURE

Company Culture 101: What is company culture?

By Zev Freundlich, Corporate Culture Coach & CEO of TeamCorp

Well, company culture really is the actual way you feel when you go into a place, an organization, your home, your shul, etc. What keeps you coming back day after day? Because it's a culture. If you feel that it's a warm, inviting place, that's the culture you want to come back to.

So, your company is the same thing. Now, why does a company culture matter? Well, basically in 2022, 40 million Americans resigned. There has been coined the phrase, “The great resignation”. What really happened is that the world got the message that it's not about money.

I want to feel like I count. I want to feel like I'm doing something for society. I want to feel that I have meaning in my life. And if you create a culture where people feel appreciated and they're doing something that's meaningful, they're going to want to stay, and you're going to retain your top talent. It's much more important now than in the past, because in the past, money was very important, but values were really in the home. A lot of that has now been broken down in general society.

What are the key elements of a great company culture?

There's a fascinating book called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Montioni. And basically, the real key element is called Vulnerable Trust. Vulnerable trust could be summed up in an amazing Google study that was done in 2018. Google wanted to get some data. They like your data, they like my data, and they spent six months trying to figure out what are the key components that create the most amazing high-functioning team. And after six months they concluded that the number one ingredient that creates the most amazing high-functioning teams is psychological safety.

That means an environment in which people feel psychologically secure. I can make a mistake. I can ask to continue my learning, my growth. I can be myself. And when you can be yourself, the company will thrive; your organization will thrive.

And once you have that, the second ingredient would be communication. Healthy, good, honest, healthy conflict which allows growth and breaking the status quo.

And then there are a few more components that would really help the culture. But these are the most important; visible trust, which would create good healthy communication and dialogue and conflict, which really creates growth.

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

The Four Stages of Psychological Safety

By Dave Linn, The Gratitude Dude

We have previously defined Psychological Safety as the level to which team members feel comfortable to be vulnerable and take risks. In this installment, we want to break down Psychological Safety into its four component stages: Inclusion Safety, Learner Safety, Contributor Safety and Challenger Safety.

Teams, and individuals within those teams, generally progress through these stages in order. Let’s take a look at the Four Stages:

1. Inclusion Safety: This is the absolute minimum we need for anyone to become part of a team and a company. On a certain level, this is about welcoming new members of the team or company, and in this stage, we would find high levels of respect but lower levels of permission since people who have newly joined a culture have generally not yet earned high levels of permission.
2. Learner Safety: Learner Safety exists when people feel safe to engage in the learning process by asking questions and taking very small risks without the fear of shame, ridicule, or job-related repercussions. Here, the level of respect should remain high and the level of permission increases slightly as people are permitted to ask and experiment.
3. Contributor Safety: This stage is where people who have felt included and then had the opportunity to go through the learning process start contributing to discussions, work, feedback, and ideas. As you would expect, here the level of permission increases as people prove they have valuable things to contribute.
4. Challenger Safety: This is the pinnacle of Psychological Safety. It’s where people feel safe enough to challenge the status quo and even, respectfully, leadership. Here, the levels of respect and permission are extremely high, and this is the place where new ideas bourgeon, and mistakes get noticed and corrected. This is where teams perform at their peak.

In our next installment, we will dive deeper into Inclusion Safety and share practical ideas that you can employ to create Inclusion Safety in your business or in any culture, personal or professional.

 

CORE VALUES

Interview with Ira Zlotowitz

Q: Could you tell us a little bit about your father? Obviously, we know your father was the founder of Artscroll and we know some of his major accomplishments, but more specifically, how that influenced you.

A: So, it’s not so much how he influenced me. It’s what got him to do that; that was influence. And we were always brought up to use the talents that Hashem gave us to better the klal. Try to give back where you can.

Q: How did that influence your career?

A: Go out and do it. That was the push. Don’t be worried. If you fail, get back up and keep going. Each success is a certain number of failures. And later the successes outweigh the awkward failures. As a frum person, we believe our job is to establish the inputs. If something goes bankrupt, another career or something is waiting to happen.

Q: How do you manage as a leader to bring out the best in people?

A: Each person has something good to offer and try to take that good. And as a company, really try to surround yourself with people where their best attributes are your weakest. Then your whole team is a perfect team because when you must deal with a certain type of trait, you bring person A, B, C, D, and so on…

Q: How you got started on personal development and how much time, time and money you invested personally and as a company.

A: The tough part for me in the beginning was that I would mix business and pleasure. I take it personal when someone works for me; I treat them as family; I really care about them. So, if I have a friend who is about to make a career decision that I consider career suicide, I would get frustrated and start screaming at them. Everything has pros and cons. That’s the negative. I had to learn to draw a line that when someone’s working for me, I can say my opinion, and stop there. So, we started on personal development. Many people ask; if a coach is that good, why aren’t they successful doing whatever. The answer is that the coach has a certain inclination to help on certain things, and that’s their niche. They may not know anything else, but it’s irrelevant. Take the good they can actually help you with and not the other parts.

Q: You’ve accomplished some really audacious goals. And the question is, how do you do it? How do you approach it? How do you deal with the fallout?

A: You know, in certain areas I procrastinate. But when it comes to fear, I know that I must deal with bad news. I won’t wait six months there. Same with disciplining children. Do it quickly and move on.

Q: What kind of people do you have a hard time working with or do you dislike?

A: Dishonest people and people that don’t take accountability. I have no patience for that. I had to let people go and they made me money. Those are the things I can’t tolerate. But everything else, like the work and all of that, I try to make it work. But not being accountable or honest? You can’t build on that.

Q: What’s your definition of success?

A: I saw a saying today, that when you get to the point that you’re controlling your day… And I think along those lines. And being able to give back. How many people can you help and influence when your time is up, to look back and say that I helped them get to a better place.

Conclusion: By following the professional guidance in this article, business leaders can learn to develop an enviable corporate culture, built on psychological safety & shared core values into their businesses and see their businesses grow and thrive BS”D!

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