Well, the fateful day has come to unpack this hefty phrase. If you follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter, or if you talk to me ever at all, you’ll have noticed this phrase arise in my hash tags, my conversation, and pretty much everywhere that has anything to do with my work at all. Or my life. Yup, turns out it’s everywhere.
If you’re a human and if you work somewhere or deal with other humans at any point in your life, this is a critical concept. It may be more critical than any other concept relating to culture shift and that is because it ties back to personal ownership and responsibility.
As humans, we like to turn around and find someone else to hang responsibility on. No matter what position we’re in, whether it is leadership, management, line worker – we always want to point the finger and say something akin to, “Well, he hasn’t done anything about this, so why would I? Why should I?”
Most of us prefer it if someone else goes first. We like to see if any serious harm is going to come to us, and we would rather let someone else sacrifice themselves before we jump ourselves. The only problem with this is that we then allow fear to dominate rather than live by the courage of our convictions.
What I want to challenge you in today is that no matter the state of the culture of your organization, your household, or your extended family, you have an opportunity every day to change it! This is because when you choose to take up responsibility for yourself, you are empowered. You have a choice, which means that if you don’t like something about an interaction you had with a colleague, you can change it. YOU get to do something differently, and that feels really good. Instead of letting the fear or the “way we’ve always done it” get in the way, you are actively living out your conviction. This is powerful!
The big challenge here – and this is where maturity is really critical – is not then finding a way to point the finger anyway. What does this look like? Usually it’s either accusing someone else of not taking up responsibility for themselves or engaging in some self-aggrandizing behavior so as to demonstrate that you are, in fact, a much better human and a pretty cool cat.
Culture shift starts small. It starts with one person saying, “I think we can work in a way that is better for all of us. What might that look like? How can I affect that change?” From there, as people start to see you making those shifts in your own approach, it gives them opportunities to choose a different way as well. Pretty inspiring. This excites me so much because I have seen it happen, and every time it does I also see people become more confident, more self-assured, and more engaged in whatever it is they’re doing. And that makes them happier at the end of the day. Not because they got a raise or work is somehow magically easy, but because they have a choice in what they are doing and they have the resources to do it well.
Activity: Consider your working environment. Write down 1-10 adjectives to describe the culture you see and interact in. Choose one of those adjectives. If it is a negative adjective, how might you shift the culture around yourself to make a positive impact on that adjective? If it is a positive adjective, how might you work to strengthen it in the culture around yourself?