Lead the People #15: Intentional Culture with Hema Crockett
Hema Crockett is a military spouse, entrepreneur, and recovering HR executive, who worked in the private sector as well as for the DOJ and State Department for 18 years before becoming an entrepreneur. She is the co-founder of Gig Talent, a modern talent collective connecting best in class HR consultants and leadership coaches with forward-thinking organizations. Hema has been published in Forbes and Thrive Global, among other publications and her first book, Designing Exceptional Organizational Cultures, was released in February and was Amazons #1 new HR release. She lives in San Diego with her husband.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Culture is a team sport—Enlist your employees’ help to define the culture since they’re definitely going to be the ones who will reinforce it every day.
- Performance is purposeful—Traditional definitions of high performance tend to focus on results, but it’s time to include upholding values in that definition, as well.
- You always have an audience—Your team is watching how you think, make decisions, and behave and they make their own interpretations as a result.
From the Source
“The way I define culture is really looking at it based at this intersection of values, actions, and behaviors.“
“A lot of times people think—especially in small companies—that whatever the founder or co-founders values are, those are the values of the company. And the truth is that may be where it starts. Absolutely. And then as the company starts to grow, and more people come in, and we start to really see that culture that is created—again whether it's intentional or not—there's always a culture that's created. It's time to revisit what those values look like.“
“It's not the executive team sitting in a room behind closed doors coming up with words that they want to represent the organization. It's actually a much more collaborative event or process.”
“In any organization that I was part of when I was still an in-house HR executive, we used values as one of our performance management methods.”
“With open PTO policies or these unlimited PTO policies where the time is available, as a leader, what are you telling your employees about that time? Are you really allowing them to unplug and are you as well setting the tone? Are you unplugging during that time?“
“I think the culture influences leadership development and expectations of them, but also leaders influence the culture.”
“Leaders have the ability to completely derail the culture. If they're not self-aware, if they're not embodying those values, if they're doing one thing and saying another, then what is the message that's actually being conveyed?“
“Subcultures are always going to exist whether a leader is intentional about creating one or not. So with that said, the leader actually does need to get a little bit intentional.”
“If you really want a high performing organization—if you really want to be an employer of choice, —the best way to do that is to make sure that what you are doing is anchored in those values. And then you can keep building from there.”
Connect with Hema
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hemacrockett
Website: http://www.gogigtalent.com
Book: Designing Exceptional Organizational Cultures: How to Develop Companies where Employees Thrive
New Book: The Everyday Leader: 14 Marine Corps Traits to Unlock Your Leadership DNA
Links
“Over/Under” game segment source: