This is the energy of electrification available type-desk high-performance variant with nearly 500 horsepower and 278 mile EPA range range. Choose from our complimentary charging packages so you can charge how you want the all-electric Acura ZDX. This is the energy of innovation, Acura, precision-crafted performance. This is your local Acura dealer till he's the all-electric ZDX for $389 a month. Hi everyone and welcome to the Flying Solo Podcast where we celebrate the journey of small business owners and entrepreneurs. I'm Suss Busby, editor of Flying Solo, and today we're diving into a topic that affects every workplace, from small businesses to global corporations, and that's workplace culture. Now joining me is Colin D. Ellis, a workplace culture expert, award-winning speaker and best-selling author of four books including his latest detox to your culture. Colin has worked with some of the world's biggest names like Red Bull, Microsoft, Cisco, helping them to create positive high-performing workplaces and today he's here to share insights into what makes a workplace culture a little bit toxic, how to spot the warning signs and most importantly, how to foster an environment where everyone can actually thrive. So Colin, welcome to the show, so glad you could join me today. Thanks, Suss. Great to be here. Excellent. Now can you tell me a little bit about your journey just for our listeners? How did you end up becoming a workplace culture expert? Oh my gosh, Suss, I could probably take up the entire podcast. I wasn't employing myself for 30 years and I was really fortunate, I was really fortunate early in my career, I had a manager who taught me how to be a manager, which sounds a bit daft but we don't generally do that in the workplace and one of the things he taught me was how to build a great team. So I always had this fascination of how to build a great team and then as I progressed through my career, I kind of evolved that into a, almost like a processor when I had my own team, I would take them away for two days and I built up this kind of, as we would call it, intellectual property now around how to do that and so when I got passed over for a C-suite job myself, I decided that, you know, the building teams, we didn't call it culture back then, but building teams and team was thinking I was really passionate about and what I wanted to do was to write about it, to tell the world about it because, you know, for me as an individual and for others too, I recognized that when we create the environment where people are happy to come to work, then that's where the magic happens and so I kind of risked everything 10 years ago to start my own business and yeah, I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right, yeah. Well, I'm glad to hear it Colin, I wouldn't want to have you not doing well. Yeah, that'd be a rubbish podcast and I feel like every turn, thank you for having me on. Yeah, thanks so much for joining us, okay, bye for now. Yeah. So, why did you decide it was time to put pen to paper for this latest book, detoxing culture? Yeah, I got tired of reading about toxic culture in the media session and from the perspective of whenever you read these stories, what's often missing is the fact that human beings absolutely dread going to work in these places, you know, as part of the research for the book, you know, I found out one in four people dreads going to work and as a former employee, I've been there myself a few times, but I think, you know, throughout my work, this is a sense of inevitability about toxic culture that that's just what happens, isn't it? And so, no, it's the answer that isn't just what happens, you know, and I really wanted to write the book to help employees, help managers, help business leaders to really understand kind of what they needed to do to make sure that the conditions for toxic culture never arose. So, I thought, you know, that's what I would do, I would look at, you know, case studies from around the world and, you know, produce a bit of a blueprint that, and easy to follow blueprint so that people could create the condition to work great work flourish to knock toxicity. Do some industries lend themselves to toxicity more than others? I think, yes, certain high-pressure environments do, so, you know, I shared a story earlier that I worked with a sales team and that became toxic because of the pressure that they put on staff. And yet, by the same token, I've also worked with a sales team where they've had a really vibrant culture. And so often, I think it really depends on the individual. It says, you know, one of the questions I get asked more often than not is, you know, when I look at my organization, you know, out of the 10 teams, eight are flourishing, but two aren't, what's the difference? And the difference is always the person leading the team and there's that classic phrase, you know, people don't leave organizations, they leave toxic bosses. And that's true. It's not necessarily the individual, but it's definitely the environment that they create that they just have had enough of and they just want to walk away from. What about power dynamics? Is there some kind of role that they play in toxicity? Yeah, 100%. And I think leaders often, you know, business leaders, and I use that term loosely in toxic cultures, they often get caught in this power trap in the sense that what they want to do is they want to exert undue influence over people in order to get something done and whether it's a target hit, a deadline made or whatever it might be. But on the flip side is that actually they need everybody to work together in order to achieve that. And so actually the power dynamic becomes a barrier to collaboration, but they don't quite see it that way. And they think that by exerting more power, generating more threat and undermining the safety within the team, that that will naturally lead to the target or the deadline being hit when the opposite is true. What about for our small business listeners, because there's a lot of them, what do you mean when you're talking to a small business about workplace culture? Is it very different to when you're talking to a big corporate organization? No, it's still scale, Cess, you know, I worked with actually work with a dentist in Queensland earlier this year, just a fabulous small little business. But the pillars of culture are the same, you know, I wrote a book called Culture Fix in 2019. And what I did was I looked at workplace cultures from around the world to find out what the common things were and the common things were, you know, a business has to have a vision. So, you know, what do we want to try and achieve within what time period they have, they have a set of values. So as a business, what do we stand for, you know, what things are important to us, personality and communication. So how do we build relationships between people, even if it's just two or three people, you know, empathy is really important. That's the glue that holds people together. So making time for conversation. How do we behave towards each other? So, you know, kind of describing what it means to be human being in work, what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. How do we work together? So collaboration, what tools do we use when we say we've got to do something? How do we do it? When do we do it? And then the last thing is innovation is how much time are we making to be creative. And so all of those six pillars, they apply to a, you know, kind of five person garden in business in Victoria, as well as a 50,000 person, you know, kind of IT business based in San Jose. The principles are the same, but it's really dependent on the person at the top of the culture role model and what they expect of everybody else. So you spoke about the vision and the values. So embedding that from the very, very start, that's where the the culture process begins. Yeah, it is. So the vision really sets out what the aspiration of the organization is. And, you know, if you're a dentist in Queensland, it might be to become, you know, our vision is, you know, to the best reputation in Queensland, that might be your vision. And what that does is when it's succinctly written, is it, you know, it should light a fire inside people, you know, metaphorically, it should be like, wow, that's really cool. I want to be part of that. The values are really emotional principles. They kind of set the tone for the, for the environment. And every organization has slightly different values, you know, for a, for a dental surgery is very different for a sales organization, very different for like, you know, a consulting company. What are the things that we believe to be true? And then, and then what, you know, what every business does is it uses its values to find people that believe the things that they do. You know, one of the, you know, one of the biggest contributors to successful business is intrinsic motivation. And basically, intrinsic motivation is, you know, how driven are people to succeed? And when they're working in an environment, where they believe in the values, then that adds to the intrinsic motivation, you know, and kind of gives them the strength every day to do what they need to do to succeed. So how can you develop that motivation in, in your staff of perhaps feeling a lack of motivation at the moment? Well, I think, you know, particularly for small businesses, yes, as a, as a founder, as the person that runs the business as the owner of the business, you have a responsibility to not only shape the strategy, you know, kind of, what are you going to concentrate on? What are you not going to concentrate on? But also to role model the behaviors that you expect of everybody else to make sure that people feel challenged in their work, but not stressed or anxious about it. I think too often what we do within, within businesses, we put the emphasis on extrinsic motivation. So extrinsic motivation essentially is rewards, you know, your pay and your benefits. And so, you know, we promise to pay people a certain amount of money. We promise to give them certain things. And in return, we expect motivation. And sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. And when they don't deliver often, we say, but I'm paying you this much money, which, of course, is completely the wrong thing to do because it, it drains intrinsic motivation. What we want is for people to get up in the morning and feel not only that they're working in an environment where that they, where they can flourish, but also that they really want to develop themselves and contribute to the evolution of the business. And so from an owner's perspective, creating that environment then basically becomes the foundation for all future success. Because, you know, I'm, you know, I like to call myself a realistic optimist. It'd be great if everyone was overjoyed to come to work, but they don't. Most people just want to do the job they need to do to earn the money so they can spend the time with their loved ones, which is perfectly fine. But if you create an environment that's the void of fear, where there's opportunity for laughter, but it's got enough challenge so that you feel that you're growing as a human being and as a person and you're creating the relationships to help you do. So that can only add to the motivation. And so, you know, owners really need to think about, well, how do I do that on a daily basis? So what might be some signs that your workplace culture is turning toxic? I mean, obviously, you know, harassment, bullying, anything like that, they're very obvious signs. But what might be some incremental things that might initially go unnoticed? Yeah, yeah, harassment, bully. And that's a really good point that you make because people usually jump to them. But really, that's towards the end of the process. Like you said, there are so many signs before then, where kind of long hours are expected, passive aggressive communication, unconscious bias, microaggressions. So this is where people will just lose their temper and then they'll apologize and they'll lose it again, then they'll apologize. Or maybe they won't apologize. Maybe they'll blame you for making them feel like that, Cess. I think rumors, hearsay, persistent profanities, you know, in some cultures, it's okay to swear within the team, but it's never okay to swear at somebody. Your ideas might be dismissed, you're asked to do something unethical. All these are real warning signs that this is a toxic culture, which eventually could lead to exactly, as you say, bully and harassment, assault, cruelty, fraud, threats, all of those kind of things that then become the worst of workplaces. So how do you combat that then? How do you draw a line and go, this is not how I want my business to be. This is not how I want us to be with each other. How do you start making a shift in behavior? Yeah, so you have to deal with it as soon as you see it. You know, I use an analogy last week about, you know, when doctors find cancer, they don't just leave it in there in the hope that it sorts itself out. And I often feel that with organizations that've got toxic cultures, that's what happens. You know, sometimes there's a lack of courage to deal with it. Sometimes there's a fear of dealing with it. I think if you're a business owner and you're seeing some of those signs, you really do need to down tools for as long as you need to actually talk about what you see and then to make a new agreement and a new commitment to each other. I think there also has to be an acceptance that the world has changed. There are some people that, you know, kind of still heart back to the good old days of work where you could just tell people what to do and they would do it. You know, one of the things I always say is, you know, you can look back, but you can't go back. You have to recognize the world that we live in today, what people are looking for, engage people in the conversation, give them agency over the culture. And then if anybody should try and undermine it for whatever reason there's a business owner you need to deal with that quickly, efficiently with empathy to begin with. But no one person is bigger than the culture and nor should we allow that to happen. What if the toxic culture is actually stemming from the leadership team? What can be done then? Yeah, more often than not. Fortunately, there's more often than not. That's exactly what happens. And so what you're reliant on then is people being honest back to the leaders to tell them how they feel. Often it's not possible to do that because of the fear that they generate, you know, if the business even, you know, some small businesses have got a little HR team. If you can talk to HR, that would be good if there's an opportunity to go and work within a different team, you should look to do that. Ultimately, you know, if the safety is undermined, if there's a real threat to you and it's affecting your mental physical health, you know, lots of anxiety, lots of stress, then you really do need to find another position. One that is actually safe to show up at every day where you can be a best self. I think oftentimes, as well, as you mentioned, people are very fearful of recriminations. If it is the toxic culture is coming from, you know, their boss. Are there steps that they can take apart from moving them, removing themselves from the situation? Well, I always say if you can, if you can have an honest conversation with your boss, that's what you should do. You should remove as much of the emotion from it as you possibly can. You should always focus on the facts. You should be honest about how it makes you feel. They might, they may dismiss it. You know, if it's that kind of environment, but you should stick to your guns and talk about, you know, kind of how you like to be motivated, I think often we're fearful of even saying that, you know, the way that I like to be motivated is, you know, communication is a skill that is really hard to do. And so kind of letting people know how you like to be communicated to could be or could be away. Also, you know, kind of lean on your workmates. I'm definitely not encouraging gossip, but talk to each other about what's the best way that we can raise this with our boss? Because if there's more than one of you, then sometimes there's strength in numbers. Sometimes it, you know, increases our ability to be courageous. But you know, the best thing to do is always deal with it face to face. And you know, and the thing that I never recommend is to go public on social media. You know, that has the sometimes you feel like you have no, you know, recourse other than to do that. But there's a good chance that that could ruin your own reputation for years to call. That's definitely not what you want. What if perhaps I am the business owner? And I have noticed some behaviours in myself that might not be necessarily acceptable. And I guess recognizing them is the first step to changing them. But what else would you suggest in terms of trying to shift the culture back to a more positive place? Ask for feedback. I gave this advice recently to a leader whose engagement scores were really low, you know, within bigger companies. They do these engagement surveys. And he said it was a bit of a surprise to him and didn't quite know what to do. And I said, well, and you need to sit down and talk to your team. If you're not getting what you want in terms of the results, you know, recognize that you're the catalyst is the only other catalyst for the culture and it's the culture that produces results. So sit down with people and listen, you know, kind of switch your mouth off and switch your ears on and ask the question, you know, let's talk about how you feel when you come to work. Let's talk about what I can do differently. We've got any feedback from me. Now, the first time you might do this as a business owner, you might get nothing back, which is always a sign. I feel that if people feel safe to raise things, they always will. So you just got to keep asking people. Yeah, you made the point about self awareness, you know, self awareness is very difficult to do. And often it's a lack of self awareness that stops people actually looking looking at themselves in the mirror and asking if they can do a better job. At the end of the day, as I say to everybody, it doesn't matter how good you are right now, you're never the finished article. There's always more that you can do to to improve who you are. And by getting a little bit of feedback from those around you, that can guide you in the things that probably need the most work. Now, in your book, you talk about some case studies, particularly big organizations like Uber, for example, what I think people have probably seen the movie on the mini series on Netflix or Stan or whatever it was, or it looked like the culture was pretty terrible at some point. What are some lessons that maybe business owners, small business owners can take away from those big organizations and the mistakes that they made? Well, Uber is a great example because Travis Kalanek is the owner really, he dictated that culture. It became toxic because of his own behaviors. And he was famously recorded, berating an Uber driver. And that's what led to his own downfall. Not long after that, says his puritan involved in a really bad voting accident. And he wrote himself a letter and kind of talked to himself about what he would do differently. And I did a presentation, small business owners, not long ago. And I said, go and find some of these case studies, there are things that I include in my books, there are things that others include in their books. You know, if you want to start using AI, that's a good place to start, just hop on to court and say, give me 10 case studies from toxic cultures and small businesses. What could I do differently? You know, there are so many resources out there. But recognizing the one thing that I always say to small business owners is you set the tone, you get the culture that you choose to build. If you work with your employees to define how you want to get worked on, how you want to behave as human beings, what time you're going to make for new ideas, how you're going to mix socially, then it's up to you to make the time to be able to do that. If you're always too busy to do that, then the culture is just going to be completely broken at some stage. And then you'll find it hard to ever come back from that. What about my businesses going really well? I have a great team that's great culture, but business is going so well. I'm going to be scaling and I'm going to be getting bigger and bigger. How do I actually manage to keep our handle on the beautiful culture that I've got now and have that go forward with me as I grow? So recognize it's going to change. So that's the first thing. And what you need to do is scale the culture with the team. I've just been working with a startup in Switzerland, and they've got to that kind of magical 50 people number. And I always say that the culture really changes at 50 people because at 50 people the founders don't know everybody's name. And then at 150 people, because at 150 people it starts to become more of a corporate structure. And so owners need to recognize that the culture that they have right now is going to change. But if they spend time and money to positively evolve the culture in the right way, and so I've written about this in both culture fix and detox your culture is how to do this. And then what they end up creating is something that will grow with the business. I think, you know, one of the things that I've seen in the past this is owners try and grow the business using the old culture. And as I always say, you can look back but you can't go back. And so it's important that they take positive steps to evolve the culture as the business grows, not try and cling on to something from the past. What about the role of diversity and inclusion and I guess flexibility as well in in terms of workplace culture. And also if I'm a small business, how easy is it for me to make sure that I think about those things when I'm developing my culture piece? Yeah, they're all really important elements of culture in my experience. What's happened in the past says that the people haven't educated themselves on these things. You know, if you just take a look at diversity equity and inclusion, for one is that, you know, these three are all very different things. Often, you know, organizations will try and kind of lump them all together as one thing. But you know, if you think about culture in terms of, I don't know, healthy drinking water, healthy drinking water needs to be free of different contaminants, it needs to be stored in a clean environment, needs to be available to all. As a small business owner, you want to create the kind of culture that serves the, you know, kind of the customers that you have. And so you need to make sure that all of these things are considered. You need to make sure that there's equity of pay. You need to recognize that the greatest gains you'll get in your business often cognitive diversity, different people from different backgrounds, different ideas. You need to encourage, you know, kind of healthy discussion and courageous conversations. And all of these things are part of the fabric of culture. Owners that only want to hire people like them will end up with a monoculture. And the monoculture just does exactly what the boss says. There's no growth there. And the expectation is that the boss has to do and say all of the right things in order to kind of motivate the team. Whereas when we consider things like diversity, equity and inclusion, flexibility is one of those things that has become more important over the last few years since COVID. You know, on one of the things I always reckon, having written a book called Hybrid Handbook, I always say that, you know, employers have got a responsibility to consider flexible working for staff. Listen, they don't always have to provide it. And different organizations will do it in slightly different ways. But they've got to at least consider flexibility to make sure that we're given people the opportunity to do the things that they need to do in order to free up the time to concentrate on the productive work. What about for our listeners that are soloists, the solo entrepreneurs? I mean, how or is it possible for them to create a culture that's positive for when they're working? I don't know with freelancers or when they're collaborating with other people? Is the owners on them to kind of make sure that it's a positive working experience or, you know, they have to fit in with that other culture? No, they could have something to contribute, says the best relationships as you both bring something to the party. And, you know, even for me as a solopreneur, and it can be a very lonely business, as we all know, but, you know, you've got to have your own vision, you've got to have your own kind of set of values, you've got to know who you will work with, who you won't work with, you've got to know what behaviours you're going to demonstrate. You're going to, you know, you want to talk about what you will tolerate, what you won't tolerate. All of these kind of things are crucially important. You know, the best relationships are formed when we both understand each other. We take the time to do that. We both bring something to the party and we, you know, we find a common ground in the middle. And then we both work towards the delivery of something, whether it's a service or a product. That can only happen with a kind of marriage of cultures. And what you end up doing is co-creating something that works for that engagement at that point of time. You know, as a former senior manager myself, one of the things that really used to bother me was when we would work with an external firm. And it was all done by a contract. And like, the contract should be the last result. That's the last thing that we want to get back to. What we want to do is, is to agree what we're both bringing to the party, how we'll work together, and then navigate that in a way that we both get what we need and we deliver what needs to be done. Sounds simple, but is it? Is it, it is after you've educated yourself, says, I think this is one of the issues that we have with culture. And this is often why people put it in the too hard basket, is they don't know what it is, no one teaches them. It's not like people study, you can study university in a HR degree, but even then it still doesn't teach you the practicalities of culture. And so if you're a business owner, this should be the first book that you read. People always say what comes first, you know, strategy or culture. You know, and I always say, well, it depends which one's half form, work on that one first, but you know, they're both crucial and critical components of how you run your business. And so if you're not educating yourself, and you know, my book Culture Fix a few years ago is a really good place to start. If you're not educating yourself on culture, then the chances are you'll never understand it because you never make it a priority. So what is one common myth thing that people have about culture? That it's hard to change. It's really, it's really, you know, if you teach people how to do culture, it's relatively straightforward. You know, I was having a conversation just after a speech I've done here in New Zealand, in New Zealand at the minute, and this person was saying, you know, we've got we've got 80 people. How hard is it? As like how many managers have you got? She's like 20. I was like, we teach those 20 people how to build a vibrant culture. You could have one in six months. I was like, but we don't teach people. It's like communication skills. We wonder why we always get communication wrong is we don't teach people how to do it. They learn from their parents who often are always the best role models for that all from their friends. And the same as culture. We generally learn about the things not to do from the bad managers we have, rather than going on a structured program to teach us what to do. If there was just one thing you could have our listeners take away today, what would it be, do you think? The role models for everybody else, particularly if they're business owners. And, you know, what I want you to recognize is that you can have a positive impact every single day in the week. You know, we often talk about leadership. Leadership is a choice to make a difference to the lives of other humans. Our world has become even more divided and the chances are it will over the next four years. Cess and so I would urge people to find a way to be the best version of themselves, recognize that they could become role models and have that positive impact. Not only the people around them, but the world general. We do need more positive role models out there. So, everyone get out there and do that. Spread some positivity. Thank you Colin. I think we're just about out of time. So, thank you so much for for sharing your expertise and advice on building a positive thriving workplace culture. So, if you would like to learn more about Colin's work or grab a copy of his new book, which is out this week, I believe. Yes, that's right. Then you can head to ColinDEllas.com. I imagine and grab a book there. Where else can we get it? You can also get it on Amazon. And the other thing, Cess, if people want to find out what kind of culture that they have now, we developed a tool to help people to do that and which gives them a report of things that they can do, they can go to fiveculturesquiz.com. Oh, excellent. I love a quiz. I'll be getting on that. Thank you so much Colin. And if you've enjoyed this episode, then don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share it with your fellow small business owners. I'm Cess Busby and you've been listening to The Flying Solo Podcast. Colin, thank you again. Thank you everyone for listening. See you next time. [Music]
Colin D. Ellis is a workplace culture expert who is passionate about creating positive work environments, and his latest book, Detox Your Culture, shares valuable strategies for business owners looking to improve how they work. With 30 years of experience behind him, Colin discusses the significance of nurturing workplace culture, highlighting that toxicity is not an inevitable part of high-pressure industries. He offers practical advice for addressing issues with leadership, enhancing diversity and inclusion, and building a culture from the ground up, regardless of business size. Tune in to discover how entrepreneurs can cultivate environments where employees thrive and learn more about Colin's tools and resources for fostering a healthy workplace culture.
KEY TOPICS
Importance of Workplace Culture
Focus on creating environments where employees enjoy working.
Challenging the assumption that workplace toxicity is inevitable.
Emphasises the role of leadership in fostering a positive culture.
Toxic Environments and Leadership
High-pressure industries are more prone to developing toxic cultures.
Toxic leadership often drives employees away, not the organization itself.
Misuse of power by leaders can undermine team safety and collaboration.
Motivation and Culture Building
Intrinsic motivation in employees stems from a shared belief in organisational values.
Founders should role model desired behaviours to cultivate a supportive environment.
Starting with clear vision and values is crucial for embedding the desired culture.
Communication and Combating Toxicity
Address issues immediately through open discussions to prevent toxicity.
Honest, fact-focused discussions with leadership are crucial for motivation.
Involve employees in shaping culture to adapt to current needs and issues.
Timestamped overview
00:00 Creating blueprint to prevent workplace toxic culture.
05:54 Vision, values, communication, empathy, behaviour, innovation.
09:05 Founders should foster intrinsic motivation for employees.
13:58 Consider changing roles ift the workplace feels unsafe.
16:46 Ask for feedback, listen, and improve team engagement.
20:32 Culture evolves as startup grows beyond 50.
24:31 Both must contribute for successful collaborations.
25:59 Educate yourself on culture; it is crucial for business.
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