Capricorn Leadership CEO Rom LaPointe sat down with Workshifter to talk about the challenges of building a culture-driven organization, and the positive impact of having culture-driven leaders.
Workshifter: The current headlines suggest that it is tougher now to find good people. Perhaps as a result of the pandemic. What do you think is going on broadly speaking?
Rom LaPointe: A decade ago Deloitte was reporting on what they called the “talent wars.” Finding people and keeping them is not a new challenge. What is new for some is how the quarantine has shined a bright light on those doing a great job and on those doing a poor job. If you were the kind of organization that valued and nurtured its people before the pandemic, you probably were more resilient and you might be having fewer problems today.
Workshifter: Can you talk more about what was going on in some organizations before we heard the term “COVID-19”?
Rom LaPointe: Good to great was published twenty-one years ago. So for two decades, people like Jim Collins have helped good companies become great. But it is also true that books like that either drove leaders to become great or to offer lip service. An occurrence like the pandemic exposes that lip service, or exposes it when mission and vision statements are hung up in corporate hallways, but not operationalized … not made a real part of the way an organization works.
Workshifter: Maybe the leaders who offer lip service really don’t believe they need to do more than put slogans on their office walls and websites? Are there examples of quantifiable success that make good culture more than nice to have?
Rom LaPointe: Look at Zappos – zero to a billion dollars due largely to a values-driven culture driven from the top that successfully attracted the right talent. Companies that are doing well today, I believe, operationalized culture years ago. It has made them more resilient and more successful in the variety of ways you might define “success.”
Workshifter: But great culture is not going to solve today’s problems, is it? We hear a lot about the Great Resignation. Will great culture attract people if they don’t want to work?
Rom LaPointe: I do not believe that people don’t want to work. The myth of the Great Resignation puts the blame on job seekers and workers. The reality is that the pandemic taught people some lessons: they don’t have to accept sub-minimum pay, or they don’t need to work in a toxic environment. Even the experience of seeing a dog or kid in the background when on a zoom call with your boss shifts our thinking about powerful people behind big desks. They are really human beings who are not perfect. I think this is one of the ways to understand why many people are happy to continue working remotely, and why too many bosses want everybody back in the office. But “back in the office” – like going back in time — is not going to happen without some major changes to the ways we work.
Workshifter: What advice do you offer to leaders who want to attract new talent and need to keep the good people they already have?
Rom LaPointe: I remind clients that the talent challenge is not new, even if we are looking at it today in a new and brighter light. Remember that your “help wanted” signs should be matched with “we value you” messages and meaningful actions for your current team. Make sure you are having one-on-one conversations and finding out what work energizes and inspires. Somebody’s right fit may be different or may have evolved; right person/right seat is not a static thing. Leaders who do not make this kind of investment act as though companies are machines. They are not: they are living organisms with people at the center.
Workshifter: Isn’t it harder to have that kind of communication with a remote staff?
Rom LaPointe: Managing people is tough. So, managing them remotely is just another important thing to work on. And maybe it presents an opportunity. For example, many office-based jobs use time spent at the desk as a measure of output. So, now you have an opportunity to think about output that better benefits the company. Think of it as an opportunity to become a better leader. Your co-workers may be in different cities, but that just means you have access to a greater pool of talent – just balance that with being more intentional in your communication and being more comfortable with a flattening organization – because, culturally, the boss and the employee both working from home offices removes some hierarchical barriers that, when managed well, can make you, your staff, and your organization better.
Workshifter: If the talent pool is remote, then should getting to a broader, better, more diverse organization be easier?
Rom LaPointe: For sure. By the way, the “diversity” part of that question is interesting to me because it can involve so many factors. As an example, while we want a better mix of gender, age, race, etc., at all levels of our companies, we still often require things like college degrees. While that may sound OK if you are recruiting, that requirement alone disqualifies a big chunk of candidates. In fact, it eliminates many entrepreneurs – the very kinds of people we say we want to find!
Workshifter: Any final advice to leaders?
Rom LaPointe: I’ll go back to something I said upfront: authenticity is always better than lip service if your goal is to discover and capitalize on the value of people. For many who want to work on making their culture more authentic and on doing a better job of operationalizing values, I would be honest about where you are today, document your values (we use a tool called the Capricorn Key Values Guide). You need to align on values before operationalizing them. Then, catch people doing the right thing – catch them living those values in the ways they work.
It will pay dividends.