6 Levers (ep. 8 - Identity)
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Josh: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Six Levers podcast, where we talk about simple tools for healthy teams. I'm your host, Josh Aranda. Let's go.
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Josh: All right, so any highlights from the weekend?
Shaun: Yeah, mine was good. We had the kids – the kids ended – school ended like a week ago, and they went right into, the two big kids, a week, and the middle school kids, a week away at camp, and we got to pick them back up. So we had a week with just our little one, which was a lot of fun to – I think more, it was fun for us, but fun for her to have our undivided attention.
And then we picked up our kids and brought 'em back home and got a full house for a couple of [00:00:45] days before we – before our oldest goes back off to camp again, ending in a couple days. So, yeah, just kind of into the, in the craziness of summer.
Josh: Nice.
Joe: Yeah, I love playing golf and I don't get to play that often, and I got to play nine holes on Sunday. Six o'clock, tee time. My buddy asked me – 6:00 AM, got up the crack of dawn, was back and pancakes were still fresh. Record timing, I think it was like an hour, hour-and-twenty minutes that we got the nine holes in. So it was great.
Shaun: Wow, that's cool. Yeah, and you were already up for like, two hours, so no big deal for 6:00 AM.
Joe: The sun's up at like, 4 now, so. Right there with me.
Josh: I'd [00:01:30] have to like, split like, five holes to do it in an under an hour-and-a-half. I’m just like…
Shaun: Yeah, I did – I share that video – I don’t gold and I – but I did go to Top Golf like, a couple months ago. Did I share that video of me hitting off the driver with y'all?
Joe: No.
Josh: I need to see it.
Shaun: I look like Charles Barkley. Just look like a, I don't think I'm like, that big of a person but I look like a big, I don't know. Just got a stiff, giant-like swing.
Josh: Can we pictures and notes? If we can, we should.
Shaun: Oh my gosh. Yeah, I got some video. Yeah, it's good. It was fun though.
Josh: That’s awesome. Yeah, I think, I was traveling Thursday and Friday, got back Friday night and then, me and a buddy had a race [00:02:15] on Saturday. He did his first Ultra, so I got to participate in that with him, which was pretty cool and then, yeah, my boys are in St. Louis and Jefferson City this week and so, yeah, it was just me, my wife, and our youngest daughter, which was really, really enjoyable all weekend. So I had some quality two-on-one time with her. But yeah, pretty low-key other than the race.
Shaun: Yeah, Josh, to most people like, a 50K would be like the event of a lifetime and it's like, yeah. You know, pretty “low-key”. 50K, 50K out in a regular old weekend.
Josh: Well, I'm uncomfortable. Well, cool. Well, we are gonna transition to the overall [00:03:00] topic of today's episode and what we're gonna do is focus on the identity lever and over the last 12 years of working with mission-driven organizations, we have this conviction that it's more than a mission, that we need to galvanize a team, right?
It's important – a mission statement's huge, core values are huge, but we need a little bit of something to drive an organizational conviction and what we've come up with is this identity lever. So we're gonna talk about what it is, what are the components of it, and how do organizations use it in a week-to-week, year-to-year basis?
So to kick things off, overall question is what is the identity lever? What are the components of it? And we'll go from there. [00:03:45]
Shaun: Yeah, well the identity lever is made up of a number of different pieces. It includes a mission, a theory of impact, beliefs, vitals, and tenets and values, I should say.
Values have been around for a while, so sometimes I forget them cuz they're – everyone thinks of mission and values, but these six different components and maybe to kind of – like, your other part of your question you were alluding to here, Josh, is, you know, why is it important to, you know, elaborate on more than just a mission and values and, you know, why did we get to these other, these other pieces?
And, you know, it's interesting cause we, the Six Levers is primarily for mission-driven organizations and I think sometimes it – people that are leading in those spaces think to themselves like, We're already very clear on our [00:04:30] identity, right? We're sold out for the mission like, we could not believe more strongly in the mission.
That's why we're here, right? And yet we find that that's true. Like, the overarching reason for why they exist is known and clear internally and externally but oftentimes when you get beyond that mission and beyond a handful of values, when you think about like, Well, what's the unique way you accomplish that mission and how do you know if you are actually making progress towards it in a measurable way, and what were some of the underlying foundational beliefs that even were there that led you to want to do this missional work and commit to the mission – that's not as clear, right? They might, people might have their own ideas about it, but in an aligned way where everyone could say, Here's where we are and all these things. [00:05:15] We have found that there is a real lack of clarity on – in teams and mission-driven organizations.
Josh: That's great. You – let's go ahead and go through each one of those sections and I'd love to hear from your words, right? Why did that make the cut, right? When we talk about beliefs, why and what are some practical ways that we see it come out? So maybe we can go with beliefs first and then theory of impact, and kind of tackle 'em one at a time.
Shaun: Sure, yeah. I'll start with beliefs. So one of the things we've seen on teams is when they, you know, even when they're very clear on what their mission is, their motivation, or underlying convictions, or what they were responding to that the problem they saw, whether it's for-profit or non-profit, you know, the mission existed [00:06:00] because they said, There's a problem, there's something not working the way that I, or we hope it could work, and there's some emerging conviction about that, right?
Like it can be better like, we can do better. I've got an idea that's around solving this social problem or this business problem that I think there's a different way to do that, right? We would say like, out of those convictions and ideas would form beliefs but what's interesting is, sometimes in the history of organizations that all gets lost, right?
Or – and it's not even that. It's about like, holding onto these things that were once there in the beginning. That's a part of it. But it's also saying for like, the state of the organization as they are today, especially organizations that have been around for a long time like, what are those shared beliefs? What are the things that were there that [00:06:45] shaped the way that we formed our mission?
And then we think about our mission at work – and this is important because this isn't about, you know, just having a lot of clarity written down – it starts to, with all of these, it's true, but even with belief, it starts to inform the way we think about strategy, the way we think about growth, right? All these get a little more clarifying. Say, if we have this belief about our – that formed our mission, how does that inform the way that we grow? How does it inform the paths we choose, the partners we choose?
So, beliefs in many ways is foundational. We actually start with beliefs. We start with beliefs before we go to mission and, you know, often missions there, but we, if – if, let's just say you're starting from scratch, we would say, Start with [00:07:30] beliefs and then say if those beliefs are true as the fundamental foundation, then how did the mission layer on top of that?
Josh: That's great. Yeah, one of the things, you know, just when we're talking about beliefs as an organization or working with another organization, the one thing that I find fascinating about it is we all have individual beliefs that we're bringing to the table and sometimes if we are unaware of another person's belief who's sitting at a decision-making table, sometimes there can be conflict, right?
We don't know where the overlap is in terms of, Oh my gosh, this is what is fundamental to how we do our services and so by talking about it, by flushing it out and aligning on it, you get this organizational like, [00:08:15] history and context and all of a sudden it galvanizes a team as opposed to, saying like, Why are you showing up this way?
We know why we show up this way and we know how it's gonna influence and inform the decisions that we make on a day-to-day basis.
Shaun: Yeah. I have a little story to share on this, but Joe, I want to give you – anything you wanna add to this one? No worries if not.
Joe: I mean, I think one of the things that I get the most excited about when we work with orgs to define their beliefs is just how they start to light up when they get the opportunity to really stamp these – the core reasons why they exist, right? Because oftentimes that mission is very sort of objective, and written in an objective format – We're trying [00:09:00] to achieve this specific thing, right? – is sort of how that mission is defined and it's, if you ask the question, well, sort of why is this our mission?l
You start to get all these beautiful beliefs and kind of similar to, you know, or related to, Josh, what you were saying, you oftentimes also find two people who work at the same organization finding this shared conviction around, whatever the, you know, whatever the organization's all about and just finding this strengthened relationship and connection because it's like, Oh yeah, that's why I'm here too, you know?
And so the defining the beliefs of the organization is one of the most meaningful things you can do, and it's – as [00:09:45] we'll talk about a little bit here – some of the components of the identity lever are things that you just need to raise up and clarify and define. They sort of are sort of unwritten, unspoken, but they're there, right? And the beliefs are one of them where we just need to take the time to really say, What are our beliefs? Let's put 'em on paper so that we can better anchor to them, you know, use them to inform strategy, and so on and so forth.
Shaun: Yeah. That, it just makes me think, I know we talk about other parts of the framework like this idea that when it becomes more clear and aligned, then you end up, you don't have as many of these like, repetitive [00:10:30] conversations, right?
And I've certainly dealt with this in like, my first two organizations I worked at in my career where there were some like, significant issues where we had people in different camps, if you will, like, on like a major issue related to the social issue we were addressing and some of it is because it was sort of emergent during our time. Like, it was a major shift in the way people in the – this particular thing I'm thinking of was people experiencing homelessness and like, philosophical – like major trend shift that would slowly build over like, a 30-year arch.
But then you're right in the middle of it and it hits a crescendo and your organization is solving that or working on that particular issue and you're like, Well, where do we stand on this thing, [00:11:15] right? And if you don't, starts – some of that becomes a belief, right? Doesn't always have to land in a belief. It could also land in like an agreement or a tenet perhaps, but if it's like, totally foundational and pervasive to like, everything that you are facing in your organization, like, it’s probably hitting more the belief level and the case of the organizations I worked at, like, we did not do that and what happened is we just kept coming back to the same conversation when it would manifest itself.
Should we pursue this grant that's aligned with this thing that we have not yet taken a position on, right? Well, I guess we're gonna have to go meet and talk about it for another two hours, right? And then, Okay, we made a decision, and then next month something comes up again and we're back doing that again, right? And then culture [00:12:00] is being impacted by two because we haven't aligned on it. So, and then there's the whole attracting and repelling of people. Like, once you get more clear on those things, like we would ultimately attract people that we're aligned with our position and belief on that versus those that weren't. But we kind of got a little mix of everybody because we weren't clear enough on it yet.
Josh: Yeah. The last thing that popped into my mind, one of the things that I've been looking at our beliefs lately for Mission Matters group, we have one that says we must serve the individual and the organization, right?
We believe that like, to truly affect change, we have to maintain that approach both on an individual level and an organizational level. So we had a, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, a tech implementation that the[00:12:45] training for it was going a little, not as effective as we wanted it to and it really could be tied back to one individual and it was like, Okay, we could bulldoze and go through this testing period, you know, all that good stuff but it's like, Okay, hold on, hold on.
We actually have to change the way that we are approaching this situation if we believe that we must serve the individual and the organization. So what do we do about that, right? So it creates a conversation when you're running into conflict, whether it's services, whether it's, you know, a strategic decision. If you can revisit those beliefs, it lets us know how we need to show up for our team members as well as the people we're serving because it must be rooted in that belief as an organization. [00:13:30]
Shaun: Yeah. I love that, Josh, and so much of that, like what was rooted around that was like, the makeup of our group like, we wanted to, you know, we knew because we were intentionally relational, we wanna hold space to not just connect with teams and organizations, but, you know, we – I think it was like, just us taking inventory like, realizing like we are, we're being impacted. They're being impacted, you know, it's bi-directional.
We want intentionally work to, to help individuals well as the team and organization.
Josh: How about, theory of impact? Can we dive into that one?
Shaun: Sure. Yeah. So theory of impact, there's a lot of [00:14:15] synonyms for this one. You can think of it as like the unique way in which you accomplish your mission. You can – and a little bit, it's kind of drawing on Collins, like, hedgehog concept a little bit.
It's a little bit like, What's your unique lane that you're in? What's your role in the community, right? It’s really just saying, If here's our mission, what's the unique way in which we accomplish it? And this one elevated for us because we saw that so many organizations were clear on their mission, but then when it got to that next level, they weren't clear.
And because they weren't clear, again, from a, like an opportunistic perspective, and think about the focus lever and all the different things they could be doing and maybe where they're scattered and spread thin, they couldn't access this thing that said, If this is our mission, if this is the unique way in which we [00:15:00] accomplish it, maybe we should, you know, pick this thing or not pick this thing, focus on this thing, not focus on this thing and keep in mind, this is just a sentence – maybe two? – like if we really are being, you know, open and gracious and like – what you need to say there, but it's really just a sentence that's saying, This isn't like a big complex model. I know in “theory of impact” the word “theory” might make it seem like that, but it's really just, it's just a clarifying sentence that says, This is our mission.
And in some ways we think about it as like the beginning of strategy, like the beginning of informing direction because it's just getting a little more clarifying in the unique way in which we go about accomplishing our mission and one frame we offer to people that are, that are adopting the framework and going through and [00:15:45] clarifying these different aspects of identity.
I just say like, maybe think about the different organizations, your peers, right, that are engaged in similar work and how would you say you're different, right? But it's not just different, it's also like that this is where it gets a little bit like the hedgehog pieces, what else – like, what are you passionate about? Like, what do you really care about?
It's not just like an inventory of what do we happen to currently be different on, it's what is our unique differences rooted in like strengths and passion and things that we really care about and we wanna be like, This is it, we want to double, triple down on this and we want this to be the thing that informs our direction.
Joe: Yeah. Maybe just to build upon that, I think Josh, you asked up front like, why did it make the cut and I think we debated this one a little bit and I think at the end of the day we [00:16:30] thought, How could you not clearly define your theory of impact? We spend all this time defining mission statements and sharing this is the ultimate thing we wanna achieve.
But when you think about the rigor of that task versus the rigor of, and how are we gonna, uniquely, strategically – What's our hypothesis about how we're gonna uniquely, strategically achieve that mission? Well, that's a tough question to answer and it's one that orgs should be working to answer all the time, coming back to and monitoring it.
So that's piece one. It's a rigorous task, but when you have it and when you've clearly defined it, now, it's something that you can come back to and monitor and check [00:17:15] in on and see, How are we doing with this, you know? I think there are, at times we see organizations where nothing like this exists at all. There's no overarching strategy and other times we see it is somewhat there, but it's not been defined and so it's difficult to come back to a monitor.
At the Charter School Network, that I used to work at, we – at the end of the day, had a theory of impact and one of the components to it was that kids should be in school for more time. In fact, Malcolm Gladwell included this very part of our theory of impact in the book Outliers, [00:18:00] through a whole chapter about how, you know, more time is a huge part of this charter school network success. Well, we didn't actually define that. Like, that was not in some sort of core compass identity part of our org and so we didn't come back and monitor it all that often, but what we began to learn was that part of our theory of impact was actually not working.
It was driving burnout amongst staff. It was driving, you know, different levels of student engagement and so over time, once we started to realize this is actually a huge part of our theory, right, and we're actually finding that it's not working, we were able to step back and say, Okay, well let's take it out, right? [00:18:45] And let's replace it with a new theory, a new strategy that we think is going to place us on this trajectory.
And so if you look at this specific charter network, all of the schools across the country began to shorten their days back up and place emphasis on, on different parts of their strategy.
Shaun: Hmm. That makes me think just in general the importance of how these things can evolve, right? I know it may feel like identity, you know, is something that it's like, you know, these granite pillars that don't change and don't move and to some degree, you know, it’s true that they're meant to be like, some deep-rooting and foundational anchoring.
However, you know, if you're a learning organization and you're open to that [00:19:30] and adapting, like, I think it's very normal to make changes, right? I think just in our own evolution as an organization, how we think about our theory of impact, it's been in the same lane, right? It's always been in like, had some shape, but year-over-year, like, we've taken more attempts to say like, Let's fight to say this in a more accessible and simple way and we – of course, it just feels actual and right to like, what we're doing and what we care about.
Josh: Yeah. The word that you use, Joe, is – it was great. Like in terms of hypothesis, right? So much of this stuff, we are truly testing something and I know that sounds like, of course we'd like to have it all buttoned-up and know certainly that, you know, what we're gonna do is have the change that we desire, but once we get it down on paper, once we can reference it, [00:20:15] once we can measure against it, that's when we know if we're actually truly being that learning organization and we're proving our hypothesis or realizing that we need to recalibrate it a little bit.
So, that's great. How about vitals? I know we have some organizations that we work with, right? These are our Forever Metrics for organizations. Talk to me a little bit about vitals. Why did it make the cut and how do you help organizations distill these down?
Joe: Josh, I forgot about somebody calling 'em “Forever Metrics”. That's my favorite. I love it.
Vitals. I mean, vitals are – they sound simple, and yet they're far too often rare for organizations to have clarity around, but it's the handful of measures that you deem [00:21:00] indicate success year-over-year and they're really, you know, to be thought of as being measured in perpetuity.
How you might measure them could change, incrementally year-over-year for the same reasons that Shaun just described, like, learning organization. We've got a better way, we think, to measure this indicator but ultimately, for the most part, they are the measures that always matter.
And so you – we bring them into identity. We make sure because they're so core, right? And so we help teams to make sure that those, you know, five-to-ten measures are clearly defined. The teams aligned on that definition and that way of measuring [00:21:45] and ultimately, this related to theory of impact sort of begins to inform, if we talk about identity as informing sort of everything in the organization, your vitals begin to inform how you create focus.
So any focus in conversation at a minimum and annual level, but also at a visionary level should start with, Well, when it comes to our vitals, where do we want to be at these different horizons? And so, you know, examples of just some common ones just to not, you know, make this seem like it's all theoretical. You know, things related to important financials oftentimes show up as part of your vitals. Things about client or participation, participant [00:22:30] satisfaction, engagement, success. It's often – there's a measure in there related to your vitals. Not uncommon to have internal culture measures, employee engagement, org health, those sorts of measures and at the same time, no – unlike humans, like, no two sets of vitals typically look the same and so they are intended to be, you know, really a function of that, that org's unique identity.
Shaun: Yeah. Maybe just two quick things to add would be that, you know, the reason we call them “vitals” is because just like health vitals, they always matter.
Joe mentioned “in perpetuity”. So you think about your, your blood pressure, your heart rate, your resting heart rate, all these different things. Like they, [00:23:15] you don't say, Hey, I'm just gonna be concerned with these things for the next three-to-five years, and then good, I'm gonna move on to something else. You're always interested in – need to be tracking those things, right? Even if you're not tracking them proactively, at least you're getting an annual physical, or in some ways you're aware of them and they're important, right? And they're – and so we think about vitals that way. Unlike strategic vision, right, and big strategic objectives, which do have a time horizon in the end.
Now, Joe mentioned the “targets” piece of it. I know we're getting kind of in the weeds here with this piece, but there is a target-setting piece to vitals. So say we are pursuing these and so they're related to this – Joe mentioned to focus, but they're also just kind of these things that are, we're always tracking and they're called “vitals” because we think of 'em that way.[00:24:00]
Josh: It's going back to my race on Saturday. I had this like, real, tangible experience with vitals, right? So with Ultra runs, I do a lot of training from a heart rate perspective, right? So I do a lot of what's called “Zone Two Training”. So I keep my heart rate in the specific zone and try not to go much beyond that and that's supposed to get more and more efficient all the time.
And so when I was running on Saturday, you know, I'm constantly checking my watch and making sure I'm not going too high into different zones and it's an incredible gauge to say, All right, we set this target from a vital perspective. Are we going too fast? Are we going too slow? [00:24:45] And what do we do about it?
And if the whole organization understands that and is aligned on that, it starts to have this rippling effect of kind of – how do you say it? – cascading decision-making because we can all see it and like, Hey man, if somebody could read my heart rate, they'd be like, Hey, you're going a little too fast right now. Why don't you slow down a little bit? The same thing is true from an organization standpoint. We can make decisions to get us calibrated appropriately at the vital level because we said that is the most important set of metrics that we are pursuing.
Shaun: Hmm, I love that, and this most important thing I think is worth like, continuing to emphasize here – and I think it will probably have a whole episode on vitals, so I'll try to fight the resistance to say all the things about vitals – but it does make me [00:25:30] think just like, the difference here between the most essential and sometimes our tendency to want to build out the giant balanced scorecard and I just wanna be clear, like, that's not what we're saying here. However, there certainly can be places for those things, right? There can be places for your deeper set of KPIs or more like, by department or program, business unit, where you're looking at a lot of other things.
This is at the identity level, because we're talking about the handful that show if you're moving your identity, your mission forward and overall defining success and sustainability.
Joe: Shaun, maybe to build off that, an alternative to the balanced scorecard as well is that, you know, once you define your vitals at an organizational level, those five-to-ten [00:26:15] that matter the most – most essential – The next step we encourage teams to go through is then at the next layer of leadership teams that exist throughout the organization.
With those vitals already in mind, what are the measures most important for those teams, right? We want every team inside of an organization to have a sense of the most important measures and sometimes they're identical. They sort of map one-to-one. There's a financial one at the org level that maps to a financial one for your team and at the same time, you might have ones that are very unique to your team.
But when – so that picture of – we've got org, vitals, and then we've got these vitals across all of our sort of core teams or our leadership teams throughout the [00:27:00] org and then that's where you start to see all of the important things being measured as opposed to, maybe at the executive team level, a balanced scorecard of 45 measures and just a real lack of clarity around what's most essential. What's signal, what's noise, you know?
Shaun: Yeah. Well, and just to, I sense another episode here as well but this like how this stuff scales, right? Of just what Joe's starting to talk about. You would even then say, well, if we – for us to get to our team battles, we first have to say, Well, what's our team purpose, right?
So bring an identity of that level down, like almost like the mission version of like, What's the unique purpose for our team as the finance department, as the sales department, right? Whatever it was, as program [00:27:45] delivery, whatever it might be, and then the vitals that would let us know if we're doing that. So this stuff has application at all team levels.
Josh: This next one is I think one of my favorites because it's, I don't know, it's just a great way to think about, yeah, galvanizing teams. But can one of you touch on tenets? And again, same question – why did it make the cut? And, yeah. I'd love to dive into this.
Joe: Yeah, Josh, I love this one as well, and part of it's because it's a part of the identity that is, it's probably the one that's the least defined.
It is – So just to give it some definition, first, tenets, we define tenets as sort of the operating principles or [00:28:30] beliefs that really should guide how you work, how work happens, how you want, you know, work to be inside of your team. It really plays a huge role in terms of how culture happens and what culture ends up looking like.
And when we ask this question, you know, what are the handful of guiding principles that really should drive the way that work happens inside of your organization, there's like, a big question mark above, you know, a leader's head because it's like, well, you know, they start to rattle off some things, but there's nothing that's super intentional there, right?
But when you start to walk them through and walk teams through defining it, you find a lot of passion around it, right? [00:29:15] So one of our, tenets is “mirror first”, and “mirror first” essentially means that anytime we are looking at a challenge, maybe seeing a result that didn't go the way that we wanted, to look in the mirror first and ask ourselves what did we control here and what about our approach, how we behaved, can we be reflective on to inform maybe why the result was the result? Or why we achieved what we achieved before?
So mirror first before looking at the magnifying glass on sort of the other things outside of our control. [00:30:00] You know, we're in client services, so maybe placing emphasis on well, the client, you know, these things going on and so therefore, so really this mirror first and so the way that mirror first ends up showing up is that we're able to call on it. Anytime we do retrospectives on past projects, we're able to call on it more responsibly in the moment when we're finding ourselves in a position where we're reflecting and by defining it, you're also able to scale that mindset or that principle right across your team and just like with these other pieces of identity, ensure that we're keeping them top-of-mind as we go.
So, I just [00:30:45] love the creative and strategic place that teams get into when asked that question around like, What do we believe about how work should feel and how can we define that and let that really guide, our system and, and practices that we execute day-to-day.
Shaun: Yeah, if it's – I'd love to jump in with a few more examples here cuz I think this is just, this is one that is – people probably don't have as much experience with as the other parts of identity that we've talked about, you know? And Joe, I love this part about like, our beliefs about how work should work.
I think just like you described on like, beliefs as a general, like this is just like another way of thinking about like, our principles or beliefs about how work should work. People get really excited about this [00:31:30] too, I guess. They're like, Well I get to have opinions on this. Like, I get to have – I have a lot of opinions on how work should work.
I didn't really know there was a place to start to develop and share those as a team and so that begins the shaping of the organizational operating system, right? Like, right here, I mean, this is where that starts to take place. So one client we're just working with and I won't say their name, although I think they'd probably be proud to have their name associated with these. They're going through – they'd just been sensing for a while through a lot of growth and that they were just stretched thin and burned out and they looked back and like, this kind of always has been this way, right? But it's not how we want things to be.
And so they had a couple emerging tenets come out of that process and one was, “Put your oxygen mask on first, then when [00:32:15] caring for others.” It's vital that we care for ourselves. And the other one was this idea that they called “workload equity” and they defined it as, “We are committed to building ways of working that empower everyone and ensure the load isn't too great for any one person.” Right? So they had these two different ones – put your oxygen mask on first, workload equity – and as Joe was saying, you can imagine how that then begins to shape out the rest of the system, right? These are just principles, but they're the starting plays and you start to say, Well, what do our work rhythms look like? What do our agreements look like when we set our priorities? How much do we ask ourselves to accomplish if we're gonna honor these tenets, right? They shape all that stuff.
Josh: While you're sharing those, I – you know, the other two components of the [00:33:00] identity is mission as well as values. You know, I could assume somebody is listening to this saying like, Okay, “mirror first” – well, how is that different than a core value?
Can either one of you tackle that and like, how do you help train organizations on this mindset or differentiation rather?
Joe: Yeah, it's, it's a great question. And when you bring Mirror First in as an example of a tenet, it gets pretty blurry and part of that's because I think the way that we think about the values component of identity as being the core, like four-to-five behaviors that you wanna see in your team and to really align with your team on what those are. We didn't cover that definition, but that's [00:33:45] really how we think about, about values.
And so when you hear “mirror first”, you might think behavior as well. But the question's a little bit different, right? And it's really these beliefs or these principles that you want to inform how systems are designed, how teams operate and teams practice.
So at times it does get a bit gray, but with tenets, we also encourage teams to think, evolutionary about them, to think that you define a setup front, and then as you operate quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year, like lean into creating more, right? We wouldn't say create three or four and just stick to those three or four because you can bring more clarity [00:34:30] to your team when you define these things you're convicted about that should really inform the way work works and so for that reason, what we do see at times is that you have a bulkier set of tenets over time and sometimes it might seem a bit more behavioral, like your values.
Shaun: Yeah, and I'd say this is a, I think it's a question that we get. We've asked, got asks from time-to-time and I think the first thing we'd say is like if they feel a little behavioral but they feel still really meaningful right? Then it's okay. Like, I don't think the exercise is to say like, This thing perfectly matches this set of [00:35:15] criteria for values and this perfectly matches this creative – this criteria for tenets.
You know, generally that's true, but you might have one where you feel like it kind of feels like a value, but it's still guiding our design and the way we think about the different – the way we want work to work, right? And so we're gonna let it sit there and maybe over time, we'll say, you know, it's kind of accounted for in our values, or maybe it belongs more in values. It's okay to try it out and sit with it in both places and see how it goes, but I think just to echo what Joe's saying here, that the tenets specifically are beliefs about.
How work should work, right? Like, when in designing those systems, right, and so this whole thing is about systems change and our belief that like, meaningful org health [00:36:00] is built through strong systems that evolve, that are – we're always learning from and tenets are about the beginning of that more than anything else.
Josh: Yeah. It makes me think about, Shaun, when, I think it was the end of 2022, so going into 2023, we had made some changes essentially to our core values and a little bit about our identity and when we were framing it for the organization, right, we accepted that we were gonna move into a try-on period, right?
Identity is intended to galvanize and clarify and align an organization and so if it is not doing that, then it's not serving the purpose and so I loved when you frame that for the organization where it's just like, Hey, we have to try this on. We have to make sure it feels right and that it [00:36:45] truly is representing our identity and if not, we should have the courage and conviction to modify it and change it and make it right and so as we get comfortable with defining these things and putting 'em down on paper, we can make that decision.
But if we never get it down on paper, we can never figure out if we're aligned and can actually try it on in the first place. So, I appreciate just about how we go about teaching other organizations and that it's not rigid, right? More often than not, when we make it rigid, there's apprehension and, you know, pushing that away and so knowing that these things can't evolve, maybe at different varying degrees of, you know, iteration but some of these things can change and they should evolve and they should help your team and not necessarily be, a hindrance. [00:37:30]
So, you know, when we – you see organizations have this super well-identified identity, it's clear how do organizations bring it to life, right? If it's supposed to be galvanizing and felt boots on the ground, how does an organization, a leadership team go about doing that?
Shaun: Maybe the place to start here is just to say and I'll get to answer your question directly, but to say when, you know, the – we guide teams through as they flush out and define all these different aspects of identity that we've been talking about here, that we – the output of that is in this one-page format.
That it's – we've talked about Compass on a couple other, [00:38:15] episodes, but you know, it's really to say page-one of that compass is the summary of all these different pieces of identity that we've been talking about. So this is sort of, this is the first step and beginning to move it into culture and be that, that it can be easily accessed, it can be easily referenced.
If you need to update it, it can be somewhat easily updated, right? And so – and yet we are not saying, and we are not holding the belief, but if you do that will just magically bring it into culture, right? That is also not true and yet it is sort of a requirement for you to be able to bring it into culture and to be – feel more alive, right?
So just hear us when we say that like, step-one, getting it all in an accessible format that can be referenced [00:39:00] easily and then you can move on to these next steps where it's like, Okay, like how do we, how do we truly bring these different components to feel more alive? And Joe, maybe I'll kick it over to you, yeah, take the next part of this.
Joe: Well, I think three things come to mind. I mean, first is the meaningfulness of the process and the Compass itself so it's one thing to have it defined and on a pretty piece of paper. It's another thing for at a minimum, the initial group who's a part of really clarifying that to look at that and feel like they're getting the goosebumps, right? Like, that is what we're all about. That's who we are, that's why we're here.
All of those feelings and then it's your responsibility to ensure that the rest [00:39:45] of the organization feels that as well and I think like, one thing teams oftentimes look over is bringing in some of the same things you might do into great teaching and onboarding, bringing that into how you engage your organization in your compass – in your identity, excuse me – where you are in a very intentional way, diving into those beliefs and having exercises in trainings where you're learning about them or relearning about them re-engaging with them, right, and not leaving the chance, the idea that everybody gets it. Everybody's looked at this recently, right? But that we're actually [00:40:30] being really intentional about how we engage and bring people along in our identity and hear from people about it, right?
And so facilitation, I think, like, how you can facilitate that, how you can teach it, how you can bring it into your onboarding and then the third thing is then as you're doing that, you're starting to – you may begin to imagine that there's like some routine around this, right? So maybe every year we, you know, run a certain type of re-engagement exercise with the compass but beyond that, it's thinking about how do you begin to bring this into some rituals and rhythms so – and that can look different for different, levels of the organization, but how are you [00:41:15] meaningfully pulling the compass in the – specifically the identity part of it – back up in front of your team to reconnect with it, to anchor back into it as you think about focus and strategy.
To think about it when you're celebrating people. So really think about how do we start to ritualize it and make it a part of our operating rhythm.
Shaun: Yeah, and another couple things. You know, we've talked about this before, but it informs strategy, right? So we talk about an identity-informed growth, right? So one way that you bring it to life and make sure that it isn't just dormant on a piece of paper is to say, Well, if this is true about our identity, how does it then inform where we wanna be in the next three-to-five years, right?
So we're not [00:42:00] having these as separate dialogues, right? Where we're just like, what are all the cool strategic things we could do that are not rooted in our most important aspects of our identity? We're starting there, right, and that's why oftentimes we're not – oftentimes, I should say, everytime that we do strategic planning with clients, we first start with identity.
It doesn't mean we're forming all these things. Some of them exist and we're just bringing them into focus before we jump into that and we would always encourage teams to then say, if that's true for like your big three-to-five year horizon, how do you just use it as a set of criteria for making strategic decisions in general, right?
To say, you know, how do we reference this and I think to Joe's point about what happens when you create it together? It doesn't mean like sometimes you're actually pulling it out, right? Sometimes the exercise is actually, yeah, let's go look at our compass but most of the time what it is because of the process you went [00:42:45] through.
You already know it, like, you just – that the rigor and the cohesion on teams that happens when you go through a process of defining these things together and sparring and debating and landing in a place, and then ultimately being excited about it just naturally prepares you for then alignment when you do have to make big strategic decisions or frankly, even small ones.
So that, like, just the connection there to strategy and growth, big or small, is key and then just a couple others that are practical that I think we all deal with in teams are – think about developing people, right? So people development, whether these – these are one-on-ones, coaching conversations, development plans, performance reviews, all these things.
Very practical, tangible things that we are [00:43:30] all doing as leaders and organizations and yet sometimes we're not intentionally connecting identity to these organizational identity, those things, and we get – it's because it's probably a little bit more difficult to measure, to have a conversation around than something that might feel more hard metric driven.
But you can, right, and you should think about as leaders, how do we bring these things into all these, these different, you know, things that are related to developing people and then maybe one more here, it would be guiding agreements and so think about like, the term agreements and the cohesion lever.
You know, how do we use identity? How do we bring it to life? Think about how does it then show up in our agreements about how we work with each other on teams.
Joe: Just to highlight something that Shaun just shared, we oftentimes tell teams that there's nothing more strategic than defining in a meaningful way your organization's identity and if we're doing a decent job at all of describing what identity is and why it's important, I think that that should ring true for anyone listening, right?
How could there be anything more strategic than this when you really think about, yeah, it is more than mission and values. It's actually these four other pieces. Just imagine your organization going through and meaningfully defining those other four pieces alongside mission and values and take a step back and look at it there.
There truly is nothing more strategic for a team than to do that. [00:45:00]
Josh: Hmm. I feel like one of the other, I think, intended, byproducts of this is, you know, I'm thinking about people that I've shared MMG’s identity with and it naturally has, just the act of it has this ability to attract and repel the right and wrong people and I think sometimes we overlook the responsibility of that. Like, we don't have to have everybody bought into our mission, vision, and all that stuff. It's just not the way that the world works.
But if we don't have something on paper to be able to align people and attract them in or say, Hey, this might not be for you. You get to opt, I opt out. – Like, it's [00:45:45] just a very powerful tool and, you know, bringing in the right people, evaluating people, but then also hopefully saying like, Hey, this isn't the right place for you and you can make the decision on your own and so it's just a really cool thing to be able to have something that you can point to and then kind of rally the troops around, but also then build it into the way that you work and hold, you know, the whole organization accountable to it.
Shaun: Josh, that makes me think like when we, when you start there and do have a document on a paper and we're more intentionally bringing it to life, it becomes felt, right?
It becomes like – we have a new hire and I remember having a conversation with him. It's kind of a final step about some unique aspects of our culture and they weren't things that necessarily were [00:46:30] on paper, like you said, but they were connected to this stuff on paper and because we were drawn to it and building on those things, when I said it to him, he was like, Yeah, I knew that.
Like, he was like, I already following y'all and getting to know you. Like I totally felt that, right? And so it was – I think there's just this piece of when you get this alignment and then you increasingly like, design ways of working and even just, you know, draw people that are attracted to all that, it becomes felt.
Josh: I like that. It makes me like, super, super happy, right? I mean, there's no – I think I shared this story about Joe one time, but like there was no, [00:47:15] like – I was so proud when like, that neighbor of his walked up and he just like embodied MMG core values, like through and through, just like little things like that that just – it allows you to be proud of, you know, the name of the organization that you work for and also the people that you get to work with. It's just, that's a really, really neat story.
Joe: But I think, Josh, too, the opposite is true as well for teams. You know, when you've defined your identity in a meaningful way, you go through stretches where culture's not as strong as you'd like for it to be, you know? Things don't feel like you'd hope. They feel people aren't saying the right – the things you'd hope they'd say coming out of an [00:48:00] interview process and when you've got it meaningfully defined, it's a great – it's the thing – I shouldn't say it's a “great thing” – it's the thing to go back to and ask ourselves, Where are we off course? What doesn't feel as true right now? What is just on paper and a bit more smoke and mirrors than our reality right now?
And so nothing more humbling than looking back at your identity and saying, This just isn't true for us right now and so what can we do about it? But if you don't have it defined, you can feel just almost disoriented altogether because you don't know what you're trying to anchor back to.
Shaun: Yeah. Totally agree with all that.
Josh: No, that's a great point, Joe. I feel like that makes me want to transition to basically this momentum moment. Like, how [00:49:30] can we give advice to an organization to make progress coming outta this episode?
And one thing I think you're hitting on is just the power of the org health assessment, right? So we developed this assessment to send to organizations to basically get a benchmark on where they're at but once they do that and once they start going through the framework, how do you routinely come back to that same assessment?
Take it and understand where you're at because, right, life is busy, it's ever changing, it's very dynamic. So if we're not constantly evaluating the things that we're doing, especially rooted in identity, we could get kind of off course. So there's a great section on identity, just helping you evaluate where you're at with things and practical things to take action on.
So that would be one strong [00:50:15] encouragement coming outta here is, you know, go to the show notes, take the org health assessment, and kind of see where you're at from an identity perspective. You guys got any recommendations for the listeners?
Shaun: Yeah, I just agree with that one, Josh. I think just – and listeners, when you do that, just know that you're gonna get an overall identity score, but it's gonna also give you specific scores in each one. So you're gonna – finding that mission's great, beliefs are great, gotta do some work on our vitals, right? Or vice versa. So it's helpful to know like, the details there to say like, Where can we do some work as a team?
And then maybe just one other thing I'd say as an encouragement is, you don't have to do all of the different components we've brought up in identities right now. So you can, like we have – some of us have teams that say, Hey, this all looks great, but we're not quite ready for tenets and that's [00:51:00] totally fine.
Like, we think you – if you're successful and that process feels good, you probably will be later but know that, like, just think about the momentum mantra of the progress principle and just making progress and progress over perfection. And if that means you can clarify a couple of things, then move on to the rest, that's awesome and you're gonna get some really good use out of it.
Joe: Yeah, I think maybe just building off both those ideas, the idea of that and the identity audit. You know, pulling up the – either the org health assessment or even just giving a quick scan at the Compass resources that we have, and just looking at these six components, where do you feel like you stand right now?
And also related to that, to Shaun's point about you don't have to tackle everything at the same time: If [00:51:45] any one of those is feeling particularly energizing to you and thinking your team would really enjoy leaning into a conversation about it, defining it, and beginning to bring it to life for the team, start there. Start where you're feeling energized. Always a great, great place to begin.
Josh: Awesome. Well thanks for listening today. We'll see you next time.
Shaun: Bye, everybody.
Joe: Adios.
