The demands on federal, state, and municipal offices continue to grow. Citizens want products and services from those offices delivered efficiently. They also expect high quality customer service from those offices, just like the experiences they have at fine department stores.It may be an unfair demand, but the requirement is real.
Many businesses are trying to meet that high customer service standard. In long established businesses – like many government agencies – there are decades of “less than stellar” service practices that must be changed.
The problem? Poor practices have been tolerated for years. They are not good – but they are embedded.
How can a leader inspire change? Leaders must first understand the ways their current culture is operating. Once they see the gaps between how their organization operates and the characteristics of high performing, values aligned organizations, they can educate their team members and engage them in closing those gaps.
Two approaches can help leaders understand it’s time to refine their team’s culture.
First, leaders must use data to understand the current reality. Leaders need data from both outside and inside their organization.
Data from outside their organization clarifies the best practices of high performing, values aligned work environments. Study organizations like the WD-40 Companies and Zappos to learn how their cultures work.
Data from inside their organization clarifies what it’s like to try to get stuff done in their company’s current work environment. Conduct an engagement survey to learn what’s working and what’s not. Conduct a customer survey to learn the perceptions of the citizens that your team serves.
This data will help provide a complete picture of the effective elements of your organization’s current culture and the broken elements of your organization’s culture. The gaps will be obvious.
Second, discover the cost of doing nothing with those gaps.
Once leaders discover their organization’s gaps – with negative impact on results, customer relationships, employee engagement, values alignment, etc. – they’ll want to close those gaps. However, most leaders have never seen effective culture change, much less led one.
Leaders must resist the temptation to do nothing! That’s a safe path – sticking with the known rather than embarking on an unknown culture change effort. But by doing nothing leaders offer tacit approval that the gaps are “OK,” that the issues, lousy service, low morale, etc. will continue.
That’s not the best way to run a team.
Leaders, gather the data to learn about your team’s gaps – then engage everyone on your team to close those gaps. The research says that, when you do that, team members will serve better, enjoy their work more, and will be more productive.
What indicators do you look for that let you know your team’s culture needs refinement? Share your insights in the comments section below.
