----------------------------------------------------Business Index & ASAP------ AUTHOR(s): Covey, Stephen R. TITLE(s): Transforming a swamp. (achieving a desirable corporate culture) illustration photograph Summary: A 'swamp culture' refers to a corporate organization that is characterized by antagonism, legalism, protectionism and politics. On the other hand, an 'oasis culture' is marked by a desirable and productive structure governed by natural laws and principles. Transforming a 'swamp culture' to an 'oasis culture' involves the motivation of employees to develop desirable personal characters and interpersonal relations that are governed by principles. Managers are thus encouraged to adopt a principle-oriented approach to leadership. This type of leadership requires a natural, systematic, step-by-step approach that encourages continuous and constructive evaluation from managers. Moreover, long-term adherence to the four principles of change, namely trustworthiness, trust, empowerment and alignment, are needed. Training & Development p42(5) May 1993 v47 n5 DESCRIPTORS: Organizational change_Management Corporate culture_Management PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION MUST PRECEDE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE. BUT THAT KIND OF TRANSFORMATION CAN'T BE EFFECTIVE UNLESS IT'S BASED ON NATURAL LAWS AND PRINCIPLES. The very title of this magazine, Training & Development, illustrates two kinds of separate but interdependent paradigms. Training means to "put in," while development means to "draw forth." It is very important to work on both elements. Skills and knowledge are "put in" to people--but character, maturity, integrity, and commitment to vision are "drawn forth" from them. Practicing these two paradigms calls for different sets of skills. The problem is that most organizations train; they don't develop. In such an organization, there is no trust--no common idea of "true north." In other words, the organization is a swamp. What is it like there? Imagine yourself in a place that is dark, dank, and foul. Bugs, noxious weeds, quicksand, and mud abound. Footing is unsure, the stench oppressive, and the water stagnant. Poisonous spiders, venomous snakes, and loathsome rats compete for food and dominion. It's a depressing, repugnant place. Now, imagine the gradual transformation of that murky swamp into a magnificent oasis. See the swamp water drained away and replaced with fresh water from natural springs. The ground becomes firm. The air grows sweet; the plants give off a fresh, wholesome fragrance. Trees provide shade, and homes for beautiful birds. The oasis is now an attractive place to rest and to work and to be with other people. In an organization, a "swamp culture" manifests itself in adversarialism, legalism, protectionism, and politics. If you could transform such a place into an "oasis culture"--one based on natural laws and principles--the payoff would be enormous. The organization would gain financially, but it would also tap into employees' energies and talents. How might you transform a swamp--a bad workplace situation or condition--into a lovely oasis? What process would bring about the transformation? You can create an oasis by building basic habits of personal character and interpersonal relations, based on principles. Through principle-centered leadership, you can transform a swamp culture inside a business into an attractive and productive oasis. Principle-centered people tend to have principle-centered relationships. It's hard to be around people who quietly model principle-centered leadership without feeling the power of their integrity. Politically oriented people will either shape up or ship out of the environment. As they do, you'll see a transformation take place inside the culture, from swamp to oasis. The swamp-to-oasis transformation requires patience and work. It involves a natural, orderly, step-by-step process that encourages constant, constructive feedback. Such a change also requires long-term commitment to four principles of transformation: trustworthiness, trust, empowerment, and alignment. Those principles must be applied in their proper sequence and for long enough to help the organization achieve long-term change. In a sense, you must change from a school culture (where you cram for tests) to a farm culture (where you plant seeds and patiently await the outcome of natural laws). Principle-centered leadership is practiced from the inside out on four levels: * personal (my relationship with myself) * interpersonal (my relationships and interactions with others) * managerial (my responsibility to get the job done with others) * organizational (my need to organize people--to recruit them, train them, and compensate them; to build teams; to solve problems; and to create aligned structures, strategies, and systems). A case in point I once worked with the executive team of a multibillion-dollar organization. I asked the executives, "Do you have a mission statement?" Hesitantly they brought it out. It read as follows: "To enhance the asset base of the owner." I said, "Do you put that on the wall to inspire your customers and employees?" "Well," they said, "it's kind of a private mission. We don't go for this idealistic stuff. After all, isn't business really about making money?" "I'm sure that's one of the important purposes," I responded, "but I'll tell you what your culture's like." Then I described their culture: interpersonal conflicts, interdepartmental rivalries, people polarized around key philosophical issues, people bad-mouthing co-workers behind their backs, and friendliness that extended only skin deep. Next I described their industry: unionized employees working at half-speed; deep, entrenched conflicts between departments; and salespeople constantly competing against each other. "How did you know that?" they asked. "Your mission statement told me," I said. "You're only dealing with people's economic needs. That's why everybody is looking elsewhere to meet their other needs and to make more meaningful contributions." The executives asked for my suggestions, and I presented a new paradigm of management, based on values and principles. As I spoke, they began to see the need for fundamental change in their culture. "How long will it take to change?" they wanted to know. "That depends how badly you're hurting," I told them. "If you're not hurting, it may never happen. But if you're hurting from the force of circumstances or the force of conscience, and if that pain is widely felt in the culture, then you can do it--you can develop a balanced mission statement and start to align style and structure and systems within a year or two." "There's one thing you don't understand about us," the executives replied. "We work fast. We'll whip this baby out in one weekend." No quick fix Swamp transformation does not come from working harder and more positively in the swamp. In fact, it has little to do with industry or attitude. Transformation comes not from social values, but from a paradigm based on principles. To transform a swamp into a life-giving oasis, start by building a sense of internal security in people, so they can be flexible in adapting to the realities of the marketplace. People who feel insecure are less able to adapt to external reality. Some people try to gain a sense of security by forming structures, systems, rules, and regulations. But these only stifle them by closing off fresh ideas. The atmosphere becomes shallow and stagnant, like swamp water. Sometimes a company is inspired to imitate a competitor's culture of high trust, teamwork, hard work, and commitment to quality and innovation. But imitating other people's methods will not produce culture change. If a foundation of values isn't there, people will be stuck in the swamp. The company will remain a place where politics run the show. Swamp cultures breed dependency, and you can't empower people who are dependent. That's why most empowerment initiatives don't work. People in a swamp culture may think they are independent, but if they start going off in the wrong direction, management switches right back into control mode. Economic transactions may take place in dependency cultures, but core transformations cannot. Core transformations are fundamental shifts in the way an organization is managed. And you can't face new challenges with old methods. Today, nothing fails like past success. Many people are seeking to improve the quality of their lives and the quality of their products, services, and organizations. But many use a variety of ill-advised approaches in sincere attempts to improve their relationships and achieve results. Most habits of ineffectiveness are rooted in social conditioning toward quick-fix, short-term thinking. Principle-centered leadership introduces a new paradigm--that we center our lives and our organizational leadership on certain "true north" principles, processes, and practices. Real empowerment comes from having both the principles and the practices understood and applied at all levels of the organization. Practices tell us what to do; they are specific applications that fit specific circumstances. Principles tell us why to do things; they are the elements on which applications or practices are built. Without understanding the principles of a given task, people become incapacitated when the situation changes and success requires different practices. When we teach practices without principles, we tend to make people dependent on us or others for further instruction and direction. Principle-centered leaders create a common vision and a set of principles, and work on decreasing restraining forces. Practice-minded managers focus on increasing the driving forces that will make specific, short-term improvements. Such methods create tensions, which lead to new problems, requiring new driving forces. Performance tends to slip, particularly as the organization becomes fatigued and cynical. Management by drives will lead to management by crises. Because so many balls are in the air, people spend all their energy meeting day-to-day demands and reacting to what is urgent. Principle-centered leaders are men and women of character who work with competence on "farms" with "seed and soil." They base their work on natural principles, and they build those principles into the centers of their lives, their agreements, and their contracts; into their management processes and mission statements; and into their relationships with others. Long-term relationships The key to survival and success is to think long term--to think in terms of building relationships and high-trust cultures. Most organizations are governed by social norms and values. The people who work in such organizations are caught up in image-building and turf-protecting. They seek to manipulate the political swamp, with its adversarial spirit and survival-of-the-fittest mentality. They spend their energy on efforts that do not serve the customer, contribute to quality, or build long-term relationships. Long-term relationships are developed on the basis of natural laws and proven principles. Women tend to have the edge over men in cultivating long-term relationships. Most women have a higher sense of the importance of long-term relationships. Men tend to have a "management" mindset, and management focuses primarily on control and efficiency--and on turning people into things. The two dominant trends of the future--long-term thinking and long-term relationships--favor the natural capabilities and talents of women. An article in Scientific American reported that the nerve center between the left and the right brain is about twice the size in the female brain as it is in the male brain. That enables women's brains to transmit more information more rapidly between the left and the right hemispheres. Now, why is that so significant? Well, management is basically a left-brained, logical approach toward controlling things; leadership is more of a right-brained, intuitive, visionary approach toward building relationships with people. Of course, we need to have a complementary capacity of both left and right brains, either within us or within our management team. Most organizations are overmanaged and under-led. One consequence is that they never get deep buy-in to a common set of principles that enable people to supervise, direct, control, and govern themselves. The less leadership an organization has, the more likely it is to be managed with rules, regulations, procedures, and external supervision and control. The day of women in business is upon us. But many women are still blocked by a "glass ceiling" that keeps them from advancing to the higher levels of organizations. Women should never adopt a victim mentality. People who think of themselves as victims will produce the evidence to support their perceptions. The image of the victim becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many people, men and women alike, carry a chip on their shoulders. Some of this counter-dependent mentality has been scripted into them. This happens when people experience abuse and prejudice and feel a lack of appreciation. But we are not our histories. We have the power to choose our responses to our histories--to become truly response-able. We can choose and control our response to prejudices and stereotypes. We can adopt a paradigm that more closely describes the true nature of people and organizations--one based on the effectiveness of people, not on the efficiencies of structure, style, and systems. Culture is only a manifestation of the ways in which people see themselves, their co-workers, and their organizations. Regarding our business (and family) relationships, our guiding principle ought to be this: "We will not talk about each other behind each other's back." We may be constructively critical in an effort to help, but we will not take cheap shots. If we disagree with someone, we will go directly to that person to clarify a position or to resolve the problem. It takes tremendous courage and a lot of character strength to become a change agent. People who are oriented toward competition tend to think defensively and protectively and in terms of scarcity. Those who live in an atmosphere of affirmation and unconditional love tend to have an intrinsic sense of personal security and an abundance mentality. Most management paradigms try to turn people into "things" by making them more efficient. That's why many managers see human resources as expendable. If that view is widespread in an organization's culture, people try to protect themselves by developing some kind of collective power--maybe a union--and by lobbying for social legislation to mitigate the exploitative, opportunistic tendencies of an overaggressive management. You can be efficient with things, but you must be effective with people. If you try to be efficient with people on emotional issues, you'll end up fighting or fleeing. You'll make a withdrawal from the emotional bank account. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People A habit is "the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do)." In order to make something a habit in our lives, we need all three elements. The following seven habits move us from dependence to independence to interdependence: * Be proactive. * Begin with the end in mind. * Put first things first. * Think win/win. * Seek first to understand, and then to be understood. * Synergize. * Sharpen the saw. The first three habits deal with self-mastery. The next three concern communicating, cooperating, and forming teams with others. The last habit concerns renewal. Stephen R. Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle-Centered Leadership, is chairman of the Covey Leadership Center, 3507 North University Avenue, Suite 100, Provo, UT 84604.