1. Culture Journey
Kate Martiné

2. cul·ture /ˈkəlCHər/ Talking Points:
Culture is a word that most people have an intuitive sense of what it means
But when we start talking about culture, we may find that we have different definitions and points of view.
As Phil mentioned earlier this morning, culture can enable or hinder our ability to achieve our enterprise vision.
So I would like to start by sharing our definition of culture.

3. Culture is the intangible environment that influences how we work, behave and interact. It guides how our associates think, act and feel.  
Talking Points:
Culture is the intangible environment that influences how we work, behave and interact. It guides how our associates think, act and feel.
Take a moment to think about a saying, phrase, or practice your parents use to say or do
For example, [Tell a personal example]
[My mother use to tell me that if I fell asleep with my hair wet, my hair would fall off. To this day, I usually take morning showers. When I take evening showers, I have to dry my hair. This practice was instilled on me early on and I follow the practice out of habit and not because I believe my hair will fall out.]
If you take a moment to reflect on your personal habits and practices and why you do them, you may find a set of beliefs that are hard to articulate and express to others.
The events in your life have left memories and impressions that become your belief systems and operating principles.
Therefore, culture is intangible because while you may find it hard to share why you do what you do, your actions are almost on autopilot, without much conscious thought. Therefore, culture is challenging because it greatly influence our actions on a intuitive level.
Let’s unpack culture further by examining three key attributes

4. tells others what kinds of people will flourish in our organization
Our culture…
tells others what kinds of people will flourish in our organization
tells the market how we do business
defines the behaviors that will be encouraged and rewarded in our organization
Talking Points:
Attribute #1: Our culture tells others what kinds of people will flourish in our organization.
As I noted earlier, culture is the intangible environment. As leaders, we have a large role in determining the type of environment our associates work in.
In our culture activity later this afternoon, you’ll have the opportunity to define the types of people that will flourish in both our current/local culture and our desired enterprise culture.
In this exercise, think about the associates that thrive in their role, these associates may or may not have advanced their career. Think about associates who love what they do and think about why they flourish in our organization
[Share an example of an individual who you have seen flourish]
[A few years back, I worked at a Pharmaceutical company and had the pleasure of working with an individual named Michele who coordinated our all learning events. Michele was happily married and had two beautiful children. She had been with the company for 6 years and in similar roles. She had changed jobs a few times, but had not moved up the proverbial career ladder. Although those her career moves were lateral, this did not in any way affect her engagement. She once told me that she was honored to work for a company that produced the leading diabetic management medicine. Her father was diabetic and she was proud to work for the company that made her dad’s life manageable]

5. PERSONAL . FLEXIBLE. TRUSTED. Our culture…
tells others what kinds of people will flourish in our organization
tells the market how we do business
defines the behaviors that will be encouraged and rewarded in our organization
PERSONAL .
FLEXIBLE.
TRUSTED.
Talking Points:
Attribute #2: Our culture tells the market how we want to do business
Our business is built on 100 years of trust, how we act and behave – our culture – tells our customer the type of services we can and will provide.
[Share a customer example of how we live these values of personal, flexible, trusted)

6. tells others what kinds of people will flourish in our organization
Our culture…
tells others what kinds of people will flourish in our organization
tells the market how we do business
defines the behaviors that will be encouraged and rewarded in our organization
Talking Points:
Attribute #3 – Our culture defines the behaviors that will be encouraged and rewarded in our organization
Associates who flourish in our organization may not necessarily be the associates who get promoted into leadership roles. In the culture activity, you will examine the behaviors that are critical to career advancement and promotion.
[Share an example of an individual who was promoted in another company based on a key behavior]
[Many years ago, I worked for a publishing company that underwent a tremendous amount of change that threatened its very existence. As a result many new leaders were brought in to turn the company around. One legacy leader however was one of the few retained by the new management because of her ability to lead and manage her team effectively. As the leader of the Sales force, Rita was not only a knowledge center, but she was beloved by her team. Rita was not known for being “soft”; in fact it was well known that she did not think twice about letting go of her reps that didn’t hit revenue targets. Rita was known for developing deep and lasting relationships. It was this skill that the company valued and it sent a strong message to the other leaders that customer relationships is what will turn the company around.

7. We’ve Been on a Journey…
2010
Core Competency
Development
2011
ELT Meeting
Cultural Artifacts
2012
ELT Vision Development
2013
People Equity Survey
2014
Sr Leader
Culture Survey 1 2 3 4 5
Talking Points:
We’ve spend that past few minutes unpacking culture and its meaning. I would like to walk you through five points in time when we looked at culture to help us make informed decisions.
Our work with culture began in 2010 when we built our core competencies. We surveyed our Sr. leaders (131) and the management committee to uncover attributes of our desired culture. Those attributes became the foundation of our core competencies.
In 2011, the ELT engaged in an artifacts experience similar to the activity we will do this afternoon. We engaged in this activity to help us better understand how we move from a more tactical focus to a can-do, team focus.
In 2012, when the ELT began work to define our enterprise vision, we knew it was important to again examine culture and ensure that our vision would be supported by our culture.
In 2013, we had two opportunities to examine our culture: 1) through our people equity survey and 2) our Sr. leader culture survey. Both these surveys gave use greater insight into our culture to once again test the validity and sustainability of our vision.
From this short timeline alone, you can see that culture has and will continue to be important for us to consider when designing our goals.
We’ve got an exciting journey ahead of us; a vision of defining and improving customer well-being and a culture ripe of this undertaking.
As Joe mentioned, this road is not clear and we may take one step back for every two steps forward.
The key is to learn all along the way from our success, mistakes, and by seeking external perspective.