Integrity at Scale™

Okay, let's do this. This is Dr. Tara Vossenkemper. You're listening to the Culture Folks Practice podcast. Thank you, of course, for being here with me. I don't know if you know this, I don't know why you would, but the tagline for my consulting is, where business meets humanity, and that feels especially relevant today because the through line, if you will, for this episode is really about reading the conditions around a behavior before deciding what it means.
in doing that, indirectly and sometimes maybe directly, creating a more accurate and a more humane type of accountability.
Which is, again, where business meets humanity. So let's just think about problems at our groups, you know, at our practices or businesses or what the hell ever. Yeah, sometimes a person is a problem. I am not arguing against that by any means, but sometimes the person is just the point at which a problem becomes visible.
They end up being, like, the, not catalyst, but the manifestation of the problem. That's the problem becoming visible, and it looks like a person. If there is a missed deadline of some sort, or maybe, like, I don't know a barbed interaction or sharp conversation. If there's a dropped handoff, I freaking hate dropped handoffs.
I hate the lack of clarity around handoffs where drops are made on accident, so that's a side note. But those things, my point is that those things are very concrete behaviors, things, et cetera, that we can react to, and that's important information, but it's not all of the information. That doesn't give us the rationale or the reason or the context.
It doesn't give us any of the why behind it happening. So I think I said this, but I'll say it again, this isn't an exercise or an argument or an episode for excusing people, but it is more about getting accurate enough information to know what sort of problem you're looking at, whether it's a coaching problem or a design problem or an accountability problem, or when all that fails, maybe it is that people problem.
So it's also a way of helping to whittle down to get to the actual root issue. We have four items on our agenda for the day. Number one, where the system becomes visible. Number two, context without excuse. Number three, matching the response to the diagnosis. And number four, what the system learns next.
You're gonna hear a lot of that from me. Just lately and in future episodes, you're gonna hear a lot of that from me. So let's do it. Agenda item number one, where the system becomes visible. I said this already, but the person is often where the system becomes visible. So the behavior that we see that we don't like or it's problematic in some way might be the end result of a long chain of conflicting priorities or almost like a series of unfortunate events, but more like a series of unclarified processes or conflicting priorities or unclear accountability or lack of authority.
Basically, it could just be a result of all of these little tiny pieces along the way, but it shows up through one person not doing something that needs to be done, or being pissy about something because they're, you know, frustrated that they don't have what they need, but they don't know how to voice it.
I always think about I've worked somewhere once, the place shall remain nameless, but I worked somewhere once. It was not a practice for the record. It was a large-ish institution, so I was brought on into a position, and the position description I was given that included my responsibilities and job duties said one thing, and as time went on, there was this growing undercurrent of frustration around responsibilities and where things lied directed towards me.
And I was consistently confused and then equally frustrated. I didn't know what the frustration was about. I didn't understand why I was being tasked with things that didn't actually make sense for the role that I was in. Not unwilling to do it for the record, just frustrated about the lack of clarity.
I mean, I can't tell you how many weeks or months after this was going down that it came to my attention or it somehow came up that the position description had been altered and changed to include other things. The role had been altered, but it was never communicated to me, and it was communicated to the other people.
So they're frustrated with me. I'm frustrated with the confusion that I feel, like I don't understand what's happening or why this or, you know, I don't like to operate when I feel confused, if that's not clear by any of the episodes you've listened to. And the reality is that it was nobody's fault who was feeling frustrated at the time of being frustrated.
Somebody, I don't know who, somebody, something, somewhere along the lines, the system dropped the ball. Somebody within that system dropped the ball, but really important information wasn't communicated to the right people. And so then we have this, you know, let's say series of unfortunate events where the outcome is I look like I'm doing something shitty, and the reality is I mean, objectively I was 'cause I wasn't doing the position description that they had.
But then in my own defense, I'm feeling, again, frustrated by not having the information needed to be able to effectively do what's expected of me. All of it was a shit show. I was not there for very long.
If the people around me had done something like start with my character saying that I don't wanna work, or I'm lazy, or I keep not taking over things that I'm supposed to be responsible for, or I'm just difficult to work with, whatever. Maybe all those things are true, but let's just to say they're not 100% true and, that's just what we're starting with.
So if those people are starting with character, at the logical conclusion of them holding that true, ultimately it could lead to me being terminated. But what was missing from all of it, that again eventually came out, were the conditions surrounding the behavior. It was the lack of information and lack of conversation for months around the discrepancy too, which is a whole nother conversation.
But the conditions surrounding the behavior really hindered my success in that role, and from the outside it looks like I'm just not doing my job. That's what I mean by the person is often where the system becomes visible, because me not doing what was on that second position description and the additional expectations for me in that role wasn't just me being problematic.
That was a breakdown in really important communication within the system that I was a part of, but I am the one that made it visible by being in that role. So that is an example, I think. I'm pretty sure that's a clear-cut example of what I mean when I say the person is often where the system becomes visible.
I also love doing this just with people. Like, if I notice something is off, especially if somebody at my team, on my team or at my group isn't doing something where I'm like, "Wait, what?"
I think I just like to understand why. I think that being curious about, hang on, what is happening, and like, why is this happening, that can help you dig right into the system rather than seeing the person as the problem. Which again, maybe they are, but let's assume that there's a lot of other shit going on behind the scenes, and we want to try to be clear on that before we make a move on the person.
Okay, that's agenda item number one. Agenda item number two, context explains behavior. It does not erase choice. I really like this because I think that in talking about like systems being important and trying to figure out like, well, it might not be the person, so what could it be? Accountability, your processes, your systems, et cetera.
I'm wary that it comes across as absolving people of responsibility, and that's not what I am intending to do. That's not really the point of what I'm trying to do. I think that it's just the case that what I find is people mostly attribute things to being people issues rather than assessing the system.
That's what I want to steer clear of, and that's again, what this is really about. So if we can understand the conditions that help us judge the behavior more accurately, that's what we want to seek to do. So for example, and let's again just use me and that other institution as an example. This judgment can be a judgment about what the person reasonably could have known or done.
And so in the case of me, I did not know, I did not have enough information to do anything differently, and I didn't have enough information to know that I needed more information or some additional information. So that to me is a situation where it's, it's-- Oh God, I feel like I'm making myself seem like this hardcore victim or something.
Maybe I could have asked "I don't understand why I'm expected to do this. That doesn't make sense." I don't know. Eventually, I think that is what happened, where I referenced my position description and just voiced some confusion around, whatever the role or something.
It was very, very different than what had been communicated. So regardless, at some point that did happen, but I don't want to make it seem like I'm the ultimate victim 'cause I, I didn't stay there long, but it ended up being fine after we worked through that.
It was like, okay, cool, and then I stayed, and then I just didn't like it, so I left. Okay I'm gonna move past that now. My point here is
If we have an understanding of what's happening, like the context within which that person is behaving in a certain way, we can then figure out, okay, what did they know and what did they do? And so if a person has enough information and then does something inaccurate, that's data in and of itself. If they don't have enough information and they do something inaccurate, also data.
And I think sometimes what happens is people don't have enough information, but they do the right behavior, and so we don't even know that there's a issue within the system, whatever that system might be. So the question, I think there's a lot of questions, but the question here is not whether the system gets, like, full responsibility or the person gets full responsibility.
I think it's more so figuring out what belongs to the system, like what is this system's to retain or maintain or should be automated, what belongs to the person, and then obviously what needs to happen now or next in order to move something forward
So if we take another example, let's say you have a new team lead or some sort of new leadership person on your team. Initially, of course, there's support and training that goes in the direction, like, towards this person. You know, you're gonna get them trained up or offer them support so that they are clear on role expectations.
It's our job to ensure that a new leadership person is clear on role expectations. They need that clarity. After those expectations are clear, repeated avoidance of accountability is not a system issue. That becomes a people issue
And you could clarify if you needed to, you could troubleshoot, "Okay, now let's do some coaching around, you know, what's getting in the way versus what's not." It might be that something as simple as
I was doing this monthly or I didn't realize I needed to be doing this every week or every two weeks. I was of the understanding that if I noticed an issue, I would have to address it a little further, not that the data should inform when I address things regardless
In those moments, we're just seeking additional context about a lack of behavior. At some point, this new leader is going to have enough information to know when to act and the level of intensity with acting. Should they choose not to act, regardless of the emotionality of the situation That is their choice now. We have whittled all the other stuff down. We know what the system owns.
We have the context for what's been going on. This person is making a decision to not engage in either accountability measures or whatever the case may be
And of course we have to ensure that they're holding people's feet to the fire by doing the same thing to them. I wonder if there's another phrase instead of holding people's feet to the fire, if there's another phrase that actually, I don't know, isn't as
Gross? I don't know. Anyway, okay, I'm gonna move on.
Let's do agenda item number three, the diagnosis determines the intervention. I remember whenever I was doing my dissertation That fucking sucked, as a side note. But I remember doing my dissertation and talking to my advisor about my dissertation, and I was asking her what sort of a data analysis I should use.
This is, like, early stages. Like, I'm conceptualizing, I'm sort of theorizing what am I gonna focus on, what do I wanna study? Just, um like loosely talking through some, hypotheses and theories and everything. So I'm not at the point that I'm even getting ready to analyze data, for the record.
But I asked her that question, and she said, "You do the type of data analysis that answers your research questions." That's it. You don't choose the type of data analysis in advance of clarifying the specific questions that you're trying to ask, question or questions, you know, singular or plural.
That to me is the exact same thing here
when we don't have a clear understanding of what the question is, it can feel like there are any number of ways to address a problem. And if you've ever been in the situation where you're in a meeting and you're talking through an issue, and then there's, like, seven to 10 ideas that people have for, quote, "solving," end quote, the issue, and nobody knows what to do first, that means that you haven't actually gotten to the root problem yet or as close as possible to what the root issue is
When you have a clear understanding of the question or the problem, meaning a clear diagnosis for the problem, that's whenever you can decide on what the intervention is. So that intervention might mean you're coaching somebody. It could mean that you're clarifying ownership. It could mean that you are processing a repair.
If there's a relational rupture that's a repair process that takes place. It could mean that you're redesigning a role. It could mean that there's a consequence, that somebody is written up or somebody's put on a PIP. Again, there's a variety of ways you can solve a problem.
Without a lack of clarity in what that problem is, most of those ways are going to fall flat because they're not actually addressing the problem. Additionally, whenever leaders are using the same response for every single mishap or mistake or miss or, perception of problem that they see, they are Well, I mean, that's messy.
That's super messy to do it that way. But regardless, they're either punishing people for design failures or punishing people beyond what is really required for whatever happened, or they're redesigning systems around people's specific issues or choices. I think about with my kids sometimes.
Two of my children are especially strong-willed. I'll put it like that. That's what I'll say. And so they will just go toe-to-toe. And one is just a little freaking maniac, man. He's so damn funny. But I mean, all my kids are funny, but one in particular is big feels, effusive everything.
Okay? So what happens is that we will be doing something and he's doing excessive something. And so we might tell him to stop, and we let him fucking move around. Not like sit on your hands for 20 minutes and don't make a sound.
That's not realistic in, A, in my household, and B, with that child in particular. So my point is
It would be unfair if there was some sort of consequence for his behavior that negatively impacted the other two And so if we're punishing people for a design failure or we're doing like a global redesign or a global punishment for a person specific issue, that is not fair. That just becomes unfair.
Also, I think it becomes confusing to be any of the other people in the practice when you're not really sure why something changed or, you know, the way that it's being changed doesn't make any sense with a few other systems or processes, et cetera. So for example, let's say now we've added another approval step in a
expense reporting or something. Like, it's just this additional step that really slows the process down, backlogs issues, puts it on somebody else's plate where it shouldn't be there, probably the visionary. If it was, you know, my practice, it would end up going to me at some point
And really the crux of what's happening is that this is just creating issues for everybody else rather than fixing the specific problem. And maybe that specific problem was you have a leader who's withholding expense information for some reason, or you have a
set up so that two leaders have to sign off on the expense report, which doesn't make any sense because who actually does the approval? Like, that, that sort of gets into not having clear ownership. So
My point remains the same. We have to be very clear on our diagnosis of what the problem is before we do any sort of intervention. And that brings us to our very last agenda item, your response becomes part of the next system. This to me is just... I, I feel like I've said this multiple times in the past few episodes, but your feedback, your reaction, what you do when you're faced with something going wrong, do you investigate?
Do you tolerate the discomfort of a conversation? Do you repair? Do you
Institute training, like what is it that you do? Because whatever that reaction you have is teaching the people around you, and thus the organization at large, how you make meaning out of mistakes, whether they are your own mistakes or whether they are the mistakes that happen within the system, you know, based on somebody else.
Anytime we have proportionate responses that address specific behavior and keep the larger system open to learning, we are enacting business and humanity, the collision of business and humanity. We're basically saying we can be fallible and human, and also learn from our mistakes, not train wreck the whole system, make tweaks when we need to, and still operate within the confines of the full entity, you know?
I think one other thing I wanna add to this is that
For me anyway, part of being human means having emotional responses. It doesn't mean reacting from that emotion, and that's it. You're just purely reacting from emotion. I think it means that there are cases where I'm frustrated by things. Like, I'm frustrated by things happening at the business.
I'm annoyed that this thing happened or this thing has happened twice now with two different people. What are we fucking missing? Like, what is missing in the system? I get bothered by stuff. I mean, when I talk about all of this, like your response becoming part of the next system, you know, and like trying to get to the root cause of stuff and understanding context, all of that happens, and I still might have feelings about it.
I'm not gonna let those feelings bleed into my investigation or my attempts at understanding context or
Any of that stuff, and I'm not gonna let those feelings bleed out into engagement with the person that made the mistake But I might still have feelings. And so I think that feels important to say because I don't know, when I talk about this stuff, I think there's the potential that it seems like
You should just always be okay when shit happens that you don't want to happen
And that's not realistic. Also, I don't think that's fair to you. If things are happening that you're unhappy with, cool. You can be mad, frustrated, sad, feel a little resentful about something. You know, all of that stuff can be part of the process, and it shouldn't heavily influence what you do next. But I feel like there should be space for that too, and I'm not sure I spend enough time, like, making sure that's known, which is why I'm saying it right now.
So let's do a quick little, like, let's just bring this all home, shall we? Here's the point of this episode,
If we're trying to read the system before we fix the person, it still is worth it to note that accountability gets stronger when our explanations are more accurate, when we understand what's going on, why it happened, we've got the accurate diagnosis, we have the context, we know how to intervene. All of that stuff gets us more of what we want, which is the people end up being fixed, but it's also based on an assessment of the system they operate within
And I think if you want something to notice or try, one is that
I want you to think about a people issue you're having right now. Maybe it's an actual people issue, but let's just pretend, or if this is true, then this is easier for you than somebody who has to pretend, but let's just pretend that this people issue you're having hasn't really been thoroughly assessed.
You're frustrated, you're annoyed, you're questioning if this is the right person for the seat they're in, or maybe just the organization overall
So use that person
And then I want you to try to assess if they are just the visible representation to explain a broader problematic pattern within your business. So just play a hypothetical game. Like this person, they're a problem. Okay, but what if, dot, dot, dot, here's the game, what if it wasn't them?
What would their problematic behavior, like I'm noticing this, and it's a problem, and I don't like it, what else could be going on that they would be acting in this way? What other things could be happening within the system that would lead to this as an outcome?
And I think if you wanna take that further, you could assess, you know, the conditions shaping that behavior, and then figure out what response actually fits. Like, what intervention could I do here to change ultimately this behavior, but to change the system that gets me more of what I want and see if it works.
Because if it does, maybe you don't have a people issue, which is relieving, 'cause having people issues is, you know, it sucks. And then the double bonus is that you have now fixed a problem at your practice, boom, which is really nice. Okay. As per usual, thank you for joining me. Share this with somebody who you think needs to hear it.
Subscribe to the podcast. Also check out related episodes, which you can find in the description below. All that said, it's been great being with you today, and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks. Bye.