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Within the world of business and fast-moving companies, there is one mantra that rings true for all of them “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Mark Fields, the former CEO of Ford, realized in 2006 already that culture is more important than strategy. His reasoning revolved around the customer and the fact that the modern organization should be agile and adaptive to the ever-changing needs and desires of its customer. This does not mean that Fields believed strategy to be unimportant, but it means that it does not matter how good your business strategy is, it will fail without a company culture that encourages and empowers your people to implement it (read more here). In other words, according to another great thinker; “Power to the People!” (John Lennon, 1971).

Freedom and Autonomy

Although it is strange to find CEOs and political peace activists to be of the same opinion, there is a truth in what they believe. But what does this mean in reality? According to me, that means that, over time, we have got more freedom and autonomy to make decisions, in our personal and professional lives – which is for the better. Globalization and the internet have opened a window of choice and opportunity. This has naturally only been enhanced by free market forces in our everyday personal lives, but also in our professional lives. The entrance of a new, generally higher educated, workforce in the market and the flattening out of traditional hierarchies within organizations over time, has propelled the advance of professional positions with more decision-making power. A company used to have one or a few bosses who called all the shots. Rigid hierarchical systems made for narrow and isolated decision-making processes, causing all kinds of problems from obvious biases, tunnel vision, and even blatant arrogance or naivety. More and more decisions are being made outside the board rooms and C-level suites.

Just think about the number of vacancies that have included some sort of requirement related to decision-making, e.g.: “excellent decision-making skills”, “ability to make sound and effective decisions”, “proven track record of effective decision-making”, and “excellent problem-solving skills”. All these requirements show some form of autonomy and decision-making power that is included in the position. More evidence can be found in the tech industry which is often a frontrunner for economic and societal trends nowadays. Within the software industry, we see a lot of these similar ideas and terms. Terms like “hive-mind decision-making” and “mob programming” indicate a similar trend and a better understanding of democratic decision-making.

Culture, Decision-making & Empowerment

So, you might wonder, how are culture and decision-making related? Simple. Empowerment is the bridge between culture and decision-making. Once you empower your employees to make their own decisions, they will need some sort of guide to lean back on. A guide that will help them to make decisions related to setting goals, making priorities, scheduling, time management etcetera. In other words, they need a sort of guiding set of principles that help them motivate and prioritize decisions. Do you feel where I am going with this? Exactly, they need a culture that helps them in their everyday work life. A good culture means that people can take more decentralized decisions. They are not reliant on leaders to show them how to act, prioritize or behave in relation to their work. This means that your organization becomes more agile and resilient as leaders can be busy or absent. Less dependency also means that it is easier for your organization to exchange actors if need be. Think about your company as a sports team. It is easy to exchange players from your team if the overarching system works and if the team spirit is good. Individual players know what to do (overarching structure) and how to do it (team spirit).

The strong case for a competent culture to create a resilient and adaptive organization does not exclude the fact that a good strategy is needed to achieve the goals of the business. That is also not the original point that Fields made. His point was that, if you must prioritize your time, your first priority should be your culture and your second priority should be your strategy. A company with a bad strategy but good culture might succeed because empowered individuals can overcome the lack of structure through their individual decisions. But a company with a good strategy and bad culture will almost definitely fail as the unempowered employees will or cannot implement the strategy in practice. That is the key difference. That is why culture eats strategy for breakfast if you want to create a sustainable business.  

Read more about how culture eats strategy for breakfast and how we can use culture as an organizational tool here.  

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Companies and managers alike are always looking for ways to improve. Feedback conversations with employees are being held on the regular, but often they forget to utilize one group that is very important; the people who leave.

In the world of progress, nothing is as important as reflection. You need reflection to look back and see where there is room for improvement. Many managers and companies are already capitalizing on this by holding regular feedback meetings and one-to-one meetings, where both employees and managers openly speak about their experiences. If you are not doing this, then start doing it. Tomorrow. Seriously. The easiest way to improve your company is by tapping into the knowledge of your employees, so don’t let their talents go to waste. In this blog I will not pay attention to that, however. In this blog I will go into the importance of the feedback of the people who will actually leave your company and show you what you can learn from them.

Let’s start with: why?

Well, firstly, people who leave your company have nothing to ‘lose’, so they will be very forthcoming with what they think. In normal feedback meetings, employees are encouraged to be as open an up-front as possible. Although this sounds great, experience teaches us that employees can be a bit hesitant into saying everything that is on their mind in fear of retribution. This factor of retribution is not present at an ‘exit interview’, so your ex-employee will be open and honest.

Secondly, it is important to note that you can learn a lot from the reason why the employee is leaving. It might be possible that this new information helps you to prevent others from leaving for the same reasons as well. Often managers make assumptions as on why employees leave, instead of actually asking and understanding why they leave. This way they cannot effectively deal with possible problems in the internal organisation. Therefore, it is important to find out the true reasons in an exit interview.

Thirdly, it is important for your employer branding as a part of the employee experience. In an exit interview you can take up all sorts of matters which require closure before the employee leaves. Perhaps there are conflicts that need to be settled, equipment which has to be returned, or ongoing confidentiality clauses which have to be signed. Most of all it is a moment for your employee to reflect and express their thoughts and feelings. It is always good to give your employee the feeling that they are being heard, but it is even more important to actually listen (and act).

Still not convinced that it is important to have these exit interviews? Here are ten more reasons.

What to ask?

As said before, the main goal is to find out what the motivations are of the employee who leaves, but it is also good to unravel other possible problems in your organisation. So don’t be afraid to ask creative questions. Don’t make turn the interview in a acquisition and the atmosphere light-hearted to get your ex-employee to really open up. When having these exit interviews, then it is good to keep the questions uniform. Make sure that you are asking everybody the same questions, so that you can actually use the results. More on that later.

Here are some examples of questions that you might want to use:

• What is the reason you are leaving us? (obviously)
• Could you list a top three of reasons why you are leaving us?
• Is there anything we can improve as a company? Performance or cultural wise?
• Is there anything that your own department could improve?
• Is there anything that your manager can improve?
• If you would be owner of this company tomorrow, what would be the top five changes that you would make?
• If you would go back to the beginning of your time at our company, then what would you have liked to see differently during your time with us?
  

What’s next? Data.

Now that you know why it is important and which questions to ask, it is time to get to the interesting part: the data. To get an organised set of data, you will need to try and standardize the answers given by the ex-employees to get a clear picture. For example, if you ask the question “Why are you leaving us?” then you can get a very variety of answers as it is an open question. However, you can label the answers given so you can detect patterns. Answer labels for this question could include: “Atmosphere within company, Development possibilities, Prospect of better benefits, Personal reasons” etcetera.

One or two exit interviews will not give you enough information if you are dealing with possible internal problems. That is because it could just be that the couple ex-employees that you have interviewed might hold a grudge against you. However, if a certain pattern appears when more and more ex-employees point to the same problems, then you cannot hide behind the excuse of a coincidental common grudge anymore. So, volume is key here.

After having the right labels and enough volume, you are ready to analyse the data and draw the right conclusions to improve your company and tackle possible problems.

In conclusion

You should always hold exit interviews, not only because it adds to the employee experience, but you can also actually learn from them. This information can be valuable to retaining your future talent, tackle possibly hidden problems, and improve your company performance.

Do you need help with holding exit interviews, analysing the data, or implementing solutions to newly discovered problems? Get in touch with us and see what we can do for you.

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Some thoughts from Ellen, consultant at Peops Relations:  

When I started working as a consultant in People Operations, I quickly realized that I needed to get better at giving myself the best conditions to succeed at work. The pace was high, the tasks new and in a variety of different contexts. It’s an incredibly exciting and rewarding job where you rarely know what the next week will bring.

However, as a person who likes to be 'on top of things', I was facing a challenge in a fast-paced, context-switching world. The feeling of not being in control of my work situation and that the tasks chose me instead of me choosing them, stressed me out. Surely there are more people who recognize this, and we all know that stress is harmful to us in the long run. Prolonged stress is not only a threat to our well-being and productivity at work, but we also risk negative health consequences such as poorer learning ability, poorer memory and a weakened immune system.

To avoid this, I started testing different ways of organising my work, and a year later I am still testing. Based on how we function as humans, what we need and what actually works, four key elements can be summarized in a model we call the PEPP model (Prioritize, Engage, Plan and Pause).

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What is the PEPP model?  

The PEPP model is a summary of what research says about focus and health at work. It focuses on prioritization, planning, engagement, and physical health. It follows a number of studies that point to the importance of minimizing context switching and moving around at work, and its relationship with job performance.

Prioritize: A prioritization exercise that has helped me is to ask the question: What is ONE task that I need to get done today? At the end of this day (or week), what is it that I will be most satisfied with having accomplished? Based on that, I plan and allocate my resources. That way, at the end of the day or week, I can still feel satisfied even if the "to do list" never ends.

Engage: What gets me engaged? What is important for me to feel good and succeed at work? How often do you ask yourself this question? It's not enough to reflect on it at the annual appraisal. We ourselves need to proactively work on our engagement to understand what is important to us and actively create the conditions we need. I have tried to set aside 15 minutes every Friday to reflect on my week (what has worked well and what can work even better next week). This has helped me to understand myself better and what I need to succeed even better next week.

Plan: Box tasks in the calendar and make a plan for the week. Identify any critical days and make sure there is time for breaks. Think about when maximum focus will be required and what will give and take energy during the week. When planning, start from the previous points: what is my focus and what do I need to succeed?

Right now I'm trying a meeting-free day from home during the week to get a day where I can work undisturbed on tasks that require maximum focus - it works great for me and the tasks that require extra attention.

Pause: and get moving! Regular exercise breaks are essential to take care of your body and stay focused. I notice it clearly on the days I'm slacking off, my body is stiff and I'm more tired. On days when I work from home and know that I won't naturally walk as much, I make sure to get out for a walk during the day. During long meetings, I am the one who stands up and does yoga movements.    

For movement breaks, an exercise that works for me is to set a timer for 25 minutes and regardless of what I'm doing at the moment the timer goes off, I get up and stretch my legs. This is not only an effective method to get movement, but also to stay focused on a task.

‍We do not believe that there is a way of working that works for everyone, instead you have to try things out. Some things are fun to try for a certain amount of time, other things do not work at all. Sometimes you don’t have the energy or time to or simply forget to prioritize yourself. And that's okay. As long as we bounce back and continue with sustainable habits. Working life is long and it is our firm belief that the workplace should be a place where health and well-being are prioritized. When we feel good, we perform well. Think PEPP!  

Sources:

How Much Time and Energy Do We Waste Toggling Between Applications? (hbr.org)  

The Biggest Culprit Behind Your Lagging Productivity: You (forbes.com)  

To Improve Your Work Performance, Get Some Exercise (hbr.org)

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