When the Comments Become the Conversation
Over the past few weeks I have shared thoughts on workplace culture stemming from an incident during a program I was facilitating. The CEO made an off-hand and disrespectful comment about a colleague’s lunch, mocking curry for sure, and perhaps ethnicity. Then he...
The Signal Leaders Send
The last two weeks, we examined how a comment, nervous laughter, and the phrase “that’s just the way he is” created a culture that valued harmony over honesty. I was reminded of this situation recently, when after the winter Olympics I watched a public leadership...
“That’s Just the Way He Is”
Last week, I wrote about a lunch moment that produced nervous laughter. When I later apologized to my sponsor for not being more assertive and questioning in the moment, he shrugged. “That’s just the way he is,” he assured me. According to Edgar Schein, the most...
Nervous Laughter: What Leaders Normalize Creates Culture
In the spring of 2017, a former client flattered me by inviting me into his new company to work with their eleven person senior leadership team on culture. “They work well enough together,” he said. “But something’s missing.” We met several times discussing how to...
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