Culture of performance or Culture of comfort
For the second week in a row, I am going to write about a topic that has been debated recently in the media. Likewise, for the second week in a row, I am going to provide you with an alternative view to it.
The topic is: Culture of Performance vs Culture of Comfort in organisations. It became a trending issue a few months ago when the CEO of Starbucks, Laxman Narasimhan, was fired after only one year in the role. Shortly after, he stated in an interview that he wouldn’t take work calls after 6pm unless they were very important. Starbucks never said that was the reason for his dismissal, and they attributed it to declining sales and disappointing earnings; nevertheless, it sparked the conversation about cultures of comfort vs cultures of performance.
The conversation is centred around the idea that the pendulum has swung too far, when it comes to culture in organisations, from a focus of performance to a focus of comfort. Things like not sending emails or contacting employees after hours, allowing people to work from home (or anywhere), more emphasis on self-care and wellbeing than “goal setting and achievement”; and how this is having an impact on the “performance” in teams and organisations.
I think this debate is focusing on the wrong aspects of this issue. It is focusing on the “superficial things” like emails, time and place where people work, etc…I also think that the terms are not the right ones. The opposite of performance is not comfort. It is not a linear continuum with the two teams at opposite ends.
So, what is it then? In my mind it is about building a Culture of Learning instead.
Let’s start by understanding how teams or organisations achieve high performance. Google conducted an impressive research study in 2012 to discover the factors that have the greatest influence on effective teams. Surprisingly, the results showed that a range of their initial hypotheses didn't appear to have much effect on team performance. Factors such as co-location, decision-making, workload, team size, seniority or tenure did not appear to significantly predict team performance. By contrast, there were five factors that appeared to most significantly predict team effectiveness, with the highest ranked to be: Psychological Safety. This is the level that team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other.
Years later, two additional research papers have provided new evidence that a higher level of psychological safety, by itself, doesn't always improve team performance. And that you need at least one other ingredient: Collective Accountability and Commitment; and together, both create the perfect combination for teams and organisations to achieve “high performance”.
So, work with me here... Rather than using a continuum line with performance at one end and comfort at the other, imagine a matrix where you have Psychological Safety in one axis and Collective Accountability at the other. Do you have that picture in your head?
When both Psychological Safety and Collective Accountability are low; you get what we call a Culture of Apathy; where people just fulfill their roles doing the minimum to survive and get by. When Psychological Safety is high and Collective Accountability is low; you get what we call a Culture of Comfort; where people enjoy working with each other but don’t feel particularly challenged. When the opposite happens: low Psychological Safety and High Collective Accountability you don’t get performance; you get a Culture of Anxiety; where people are too fearful to offer alternative ideas, try new things or ask for help.
So, when does the magic happen for teams and organisations? When you get higher levels of Psychological Safety and Collective Accountability and Commitment. And we call that a Culture of Learning; where there are higher levels of collaboration, safety to fail and try new things and all in service of achieving high performance outcomes for the collective outcome of the team or organisation.
Where does your team or organisation sit in this matrix?
Next week I'll share some of the ways you can achieve both psychological safety and collective accountability and commitment.
Until then!
