What They See Is What You Get

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WHAT THEY SEEIS WHAT YOU GETHow behavior impacts what your company stands for

Sn9a~l?l~ DtL~sand dollars crafting the rightvision statements. They wantthe vision to be inspirational,motivating - something thatevery person in the companywill work hard to achieve.The vision statement getsdisplayed prominently in theoffice lobby. It gets laminatedon cards for employees tocarry in their wallets. It is onthe website for all to see.Companies hire expensive

marketing consultants toensure thattheir brandrepresentationreflects theessence oftheir productdifferentiation.They wantcustomers tounderstand howtheir product,service andprogram isdifferent, betterand preferable.The words, logo,colors, font-no detail is leftunattended.In general,

companies attendto new employeetraining prettywell. Manuals

are created to guide how todo the right thing. Annualperformance appraisalprocesses are in place toensure that employees hear atleast annually if what they aredoing is consistent with whatthe company expects.A lot of time, effort, thinking

and money goes into gettingthe right behaviors startedinside of a company.Then there is the reality of

what employees experience.A company that touts

"teamwork and collaboration"

6 Smart Business Pittsburgh I August 2011

in its core values rewards itssalespeople with individualsales incentives that drivefierce competition betweencolleagues.A company that touts

"innovation" decides todownsize its R&D group,releasing those who went outon a limb for a major productinnovation that, in the end,senior management decidednot to fund.A company that professes

"honesty and integrity in allthat we do" goes searchingfor any sales that can bepulled into this quarter -so the company can hit itsquarterly revenue and profittargets for Wall Street.Too often, a company will

unwittingly ask for andreward behaviors that arecompletely inconsistent withits stated vision, values andtraining. Employees quicklyobserve the differencebetween an organization'sstated vision and valuesand what they actually seepracticed and encouragedevery day. The clash betweenwords and actions weakensemployees' commitmentto the organization,causes distrust and lowerfollowership of seniorleaders and decreasesallegiance to the companyas a whole. The organizationbegins to get a lot less thanwhat its employees arecapable of giving - andemployees experience lesssatisfaction from a workenvironment that has thepotential to be so muchbetter. Everyone loses.Likewise, when employees

see their leaders doing what it

)

really takes to satisfy a majorclient, they know that thisis what they, too, should do.When they see a senior leadertaking the time to thankfront-line employees fortheir tremendous efforts anddiscretionary performance,they know they, too, shoulddo the same.When employees see

management workingcollaboratively acrossdifferent business units,when they see supply chain,sales and customer serviceworking together to solveissues versus engaging in ablame game of who screwedup or who caused "themiss," they know that thestated values for "a cultureof performance excellence"and "teamwork" are real andalive in their company.Employees mirror what

they see practiced in theirorganizations. They willstrive to live out the visionand values - only until theysee behaviors inconsistentwith the vision allowed orencouraged, knowingly orunknowingly. Employeesfigure out pretty quicklywhat the company reallyexpects from its peopleand what it really takes toadvance.The hard part isn't getting

the words in the visionstatement sign right. Thehard part is ensuring thatthose words translate intobehaviors that leadersat all levels, model andencourage every day. Lookno further than the actionsof your people to know whatbehaviors are being modeledat the top of the house. «

LESLIE W. BRAKSICK, PH.D., is co-founder of CLG Inc. and author of "Preparing CEOs forSuccess: What I Wish I Knew" (2010) and "Unlock Behavior, Unleash Profits" (2007). Braksickadvises top executives, their leadership teams and boards of directors on issues of strategy execution,leadership effectiveness and organizational performance. She can be reached at Ibraksick@clg.com.