132 | Navigating Middle Management Challenges in Modern Workplaces | Kathryn Whyte

Something I often say is your culture is the worst behavior you tolerate. So you can say your culture is one thing and it could be by and large, but if you're going to tolerate some really poor behavior, that's actually your culture, whether you care to admit it or not.

At Inspiring Change, we're here to help build work cultures that bring out the best in people. We created this podcast to share real stories and insights from people shaping better workplaces every day. So grab a cuppa or pop in your earbuds wherever you are. Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast. We're excited to have you with us. Something a little bit different for you in this episode and the next one. After 130 episodes behind a mic, behind a screen, talking to guests on Zoom and on Riverside, we went live just last week recording 2 episodes which I hope you will love listening to. The energy, the laughs from the audience brought something a little bit different which I hope you'll enjoy. Delighted to be joined this evening here in the Tara Building with our live audience. Woo-hoo! Beautifully on cue. And Kathryn White, who's the Head of Organisational Capability and Corporate Services in the OPW. Very welcome.

Thank you, Scott. Glad to be here.

It's lovely to have you. So listen, what we always do on these episodes is we kick off with just maybe you telling us a little bit about you, about your career journey, and about where you are today.

Great, thanks a million. So as you said, I'm now Head of Organisational Capability in the Office of Public Works. A lot of my career was in the private sector for 14 years. I was with Chase Manhattan, JPMorgan, lots of experience of mergers and acquisitions during that time. So, very interested in culture and values and the role that that plays in organizational life. Then I took a move which a lot of people regarded as quite strange. I didn't myself, but anyway, maybe that says something about me. So, I moved into the civil service in a HR change management capacity with the Department of Communications And so it was an interesting one with trade unions when you're in doing HR change management, certainly back in 2013. From there, I went to the Office of Government Procurement as Head of People and Culture, Chief People Officer with Enterprise Ireland for 3 years, and now back into kind of the core civil service again.

Great, great. With a fairly wide remit as well this time.

Absolutely, yeah. So the corporate area, quite wide-ranging between finance, IT, you know, press, comms, ministerial office. And all of that HR, L&D, and others besides that I'm sure I'm leaving out.

Great. I love that HR ended up at the end because that's like the easy bit, just the people stuff. Let's talk a little bit about purpose because I think that, you know, often people like you and I and maybe some of the others in the room often kind of talk about the fact that purpose should be the core, should be at the core of the culture that we want to have in an organization. But how can, what have you seen that's worked really well in organizations really bringing purpose to life?

And look, I suppose for me, I think really, you know, working in the civil and public service, you really have to think about what are you there to do, the job you're there, you're there to serve the public. And I suppose for me, it was very inspiring from day one to talk to colleagues about the purpose, why they do what they do, often in very difficult circumstances and difficult environment. Obviously, you know, subject to a lot of media scrutiny and the civil service kind of engagement surveys, I always find striking that people actually they've great pride in their work, they really find it purposeful, but they always score it really lowly in terms of public perception of what they do, which I think is actually quite sad when you look at the commitment around. So I suppose for organizations, it's tapping into a way of giving voice to all of those people around the importance of their work. And certainly I've seen that done well, probably in the civil service increasingly over the last few years. So things like Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Awards, where the work of the ordinary people on the ground, they get to tell their stories, I suppose, how they've made an impact. And that's what, right across the civil service in all kinds of roles, you know, across the health sector, just really, you know, anything from customs, you know, people really doing meaningful work, social protection, et cetera. So it's really inspiring, I suppose, to give people that opportunity to give voice to the purpose that the work they do has.

Fabulous. And I think that whole idea of story is so important. And what always intrigues me when we go to clients and say to them, tell us some stories, and they look at you kind of blankly and you have to kind of cajole them into trick them into telling you a story. But there are so many incredibly, incredibly rich stories that people don't even think about. I think often there's maybe a humility there that people go, well, I was just doing my job, so there's nothing to celebrate, nothing to shout about. I was just doing my job. So how do we get the stories out of people?

And I think it's getting out of people's way. So something we did in the OGP for the procurement roles, and again, maybe don't seem that glamorous and people couldn't really maybe see the real purpose behind it or maybe didn't feel it was articulated, was we got a visual artist in to talk to people. So we had an engagement group there and they asked people to just tell their stories and it was sketched out. So anything from putting new passport, electronic passport machines in Dublin Airport, part of uniforms, you know, visually sketched out. You could use them graphically, digitally, and also hanging up in particular offices. And people took great pride in that. There was lots of, you know, slagging in terms of, oh, that looks like such and such when the, you know, the figures are drawn in, in terms of, you know, the people doing the actual work. But it really articulated the purpose, I suppose, and brought it to life.

Yeah, and I guess it takes it away from that sit down and tell me a story. Absolutely. You're nearly gamifying it. You're nearly saying to people, you know, just let's sketch out what that looks like, which is an interesting way of doing it.

And I think getting out of their way so it's not like, you know, management putting a spin on a particular story. So I remember some colleagues kind of thinking, okay, well, what stories are there? What projects are there? And I was like, I don't know, we'll see. You know, I've trusted them. And happily, they were all good stories and everything we were happy to put forward. But that was one way of really articulating that and bringing it to life.

Great. I know that when we think about culture, we often go straight to the top of the organization. And I think even people in organizations go straight to the top of the organization 'cause they're like, well, you do the culture and you just tell us what to do and we'll see what happens. And actually, I think you and I both know that leaders are incredibly important when it comes to culture, but they're not the be-all and end-all. But what role do they play from the top, the very top of the organization where you are, all the way down through an organization to maybe those leaders on the frontline? How do they bring culture to life?

Yeah, and I think it's a great point, Scott McInnes, and I think increasingly, and with younger generations in the workplace, people are really buying into the idea of distributed leadership. So it's not just looking upwards. Leadership can take place wherever anyone is at in terms of their roles. So I think that's changing a little bit, but certainly I suppose people will always look to the leaders to see, well, what is the culture really like? I suppose working in financial services, as I said, there was a lot of mergers and acquisitions. And I remember at one stage coming back from maternity leave and people were saying, oh, you know, the culture has changed. Change, it's gone really relentless. And I was saying, well guys, like it was kind of clearly signaled, it's in the values. And I think one particular value was execution and delivery. And I don't know about you, but prefer my value not to sound like it's gonna kill me. So I was kind of saying, I was kind of saying, look, it was clearly signaled. And I think maybe that I'd been out of the workplace for a little while, coming back in, you have that kind of fresh perspective. And when I said that, everyone was like, Oh my God, it really was signaled, wasn't it? And it looked so different and felt so different. So I suppose people are always looking at leaders to see, look, you know, did they measure up? The words match up? Also probably in the financial services area, I was probably quite intrigued with, you know, the groupthink involved in cultures during the financial, you know, that led to the financial crisis. I suppose Enron is one that always springs to mind as well and is always at the front of my mind whenever you're having conversations on values integrity was etched into the marble there in their lobby, but then, you know, a very, very different way of working and one that was kind of expected, I suppose, by the leaders. So I think leaders, people will always look to leaders to see, you know, are our values actually lived out in practice? Is this what you reward in terms of behavior? You know, do you promote the people who are brilliant but maybe leave a trail of destruction, you know, in their wake? So it's really important for leaders, I suppose, to role model it and then also to constantly read reinforce it positively, you know, in terms of rewarding, recognition, all of that. And then also not being afraid to actually recognize where people aren't living, um, you know, values, aren't, you know, upholding the culture that you want. And I suppose taking appropriate action in relation to that as well. And I suppose that's something I often say is your culture is the worst behavior you tolerate. So, um, you can say your culture is one thing, and it could be by and large, but if you're going to tolerate some really poor behavior or not just once, but on an ongoing basis, that's actually your culture, whether you care to admit it or not.

You literally just nicked the words out of my mouth, which doesn't happen very often. Karen, who's here, that's a line from Denison, is a line she uses all the time, that your culture is dictated by the worst behavior you're willing to accept. And it's so true, but we see it all the time. So why are leaders, and it strikes me, leaders are just a little bit allergic to having those conversations. To having those hard conversations and holding people to account and saying, that's not the way that we agree in this organization, on our team, that we act. So what's the story? Why are leaders not having those conversations?

And look, I suppose it depends on what your why is. And I know, you know, Simon Sinek, I'm a big fan in terms of the, you know, start with why and articulating exactly why it is. You know, you do something, why should people care? I suppose that's really important. But I suppose why leaders, or why I've seen leaders maybe tolerate that behavior, certainly from private sector experience, is probably pursuit of growth really versus actually maybe pursuit of purpose, which can maybe, you know, be spoken about. And that can kind of be a little bit confusing for people.

It's a misfocus.

It is, yeah. Or it's kind of, you know, saying one thing maybe and doing another thing. And at the moment I'm reading Care The Facebook kind of expose. It's a really, really good book, but so interesting in terms of the culture. And I suppose a culture of entitlement in terms of leaders saying one thing to people. And full disclosure, I wouldn't have been a huge fan of the Lean In book and that kind of movement. I got given the book by, when I was in the private sector, probably by people who probably hadn't shown any, you know, no interest in anyone who was maybe, you know, trying to balance having children with a career in a senior role. So I never really bought into it. And I must say, reading that book, it's kind of, you know, I think my intuition was probably spot on in terms of that. So if that answers the question, Scott, it's kind of saying one thing but really being relentlessly focused on growth. And I do think that's a, you know, question for a lot of, you know, HR people, leaders, organizations leaders now is how much growth is too much growth, like, you know, organizationally, because, you know, and I know there's Brian here in terms of workplace wellbeing and others very interested in that space. And it just comes at a cost. You know, we all want growth, we want our organizations to perform well, but how much is too much and what's the cost in terms of culture?

Yeah, I think the interesting measure of that, and I was chatting to a group this morning from Creative Skillnet and saying to them, is really, the real test of your culture is using your values as lenses through which to make decisions. And often the hardest ones are when there's money involved. There's a million quid on the table. It might be a bit iffy, but we've got a value of do the right thing. What do I do? And that's the acid test, right? You know, what do I do?

Absolutely, and I suppose like that's organizational values, but even I've been a big fan of Susan David in terms of emotional agility and kind of back to your other question, Scott, in relation to having those difficult conversations. I suppose people do need to show emotional agility in organizations. It used to be, I've certainly been told, not tough enough in terms of what now I recognize as a superpower of empathy, but be tougher in the workplace versus actually having that level of emotional agility is really important. And I suppose Susan David would be saying, if you're courageous and you're following your own personal values views, then it doesn't really have to be that difficult, does it? Yeah.

Fabulous. At Inspiring Change, we help our clients to implement sustainable change and drive business performance by putting their people first. We do that through a focus on strategic internal communications, employee engagement, and leadership consultancy. If you're struggling with change or getting your people aligned behind your purpose, vision, or strategy, then get in get in touch. Simply visit our website at www.inspiringchange.ie for more. Let's talk a little bit about middle management or the squeezed middle. And I know that they unfairly get called, referred to as the flabby middle, the permafrost. You know, we'll say something from the top, it doesn't go any further down the organization, and nor does anything come up the organization either. And I think it's a really tough job. Being middle management now today is such a tough, tough job, getting it from the top, getting it from the bottom, probably in a role that you haven't necessarily been trained to do or have the skillset for, just because you're senior, here's your team. And I also think that the world feels a bit mad at the moment. I don't think we've settled with the way that we work anymore in terms of hybrid and flexi and all that kind of stuff. Although I just wish we could just stop calling all those things that I've just called it and just call it work. Because that's kind of what it is. But what, what support or upskilling do you think middle managers really need today and why they're not getting it?

Yeah, and look, I think brilliant points there, Scott, and loads to think about there. But I think first and foremost, people need to understand that it is part of their job, you know. So like, there's a certain amount of feeling really hard done by. And look, we've all grumbled when we've too many direct reports and there's people, you know, hanging out of you. But like, that is essentially your job. So a lot of of them, even middle managers, are probably fairly well paid. And I would say, like, leadership and being in a position of responsibility where you can ease people's path is actually a privilege. So we probably need to redefine it a little bit, rather than if you're told this is an absolute burden, you poor thing, it's going to feel so much worse, versus actually this is something that you get to do for people, um, and you can do quite simply. But I suppose you probably hit the nail on the head in terms of feeling supported and feeling, um, trained. And I think even just a little bit more support in terms of how are you, you know, transitioning from maybe being the person who does it into being that coach role would be really beneficial for people. Probably also support in terms of having the difficult conversations because I think that comes up a lot. And I'm a conflict coach and mediator as well. It does often come up where people are in maybe a mediation scenario or conflict situation where they did maybe try and broach something or try and have a difficult, conversation and tackle an issue, but then they weren't supported, so they did it clumsily, it wasn't perfect, and it's made things worse. So I think kind of conversational, having those straightforward conversations and assistance and training people in that area is so important.

But isn't it, it's interesting that point there about clumsily having that conversation, and I think it's so true, and that's probably part of the reason that people shy away from having those conversations, 'cause like, jeez, I might not do it right, and then I'll be in trouble. I could be in the WRC, I could lose my job, I could, you know, be, you know, whatever. But I think there's a knownness and a responsibility, I think, on employees as well, on their team members who are receiving that feedback, perhaps to say, well, you know, you are a new leader, so I couldn't possibly expect you to be the real deal within 6 weeks. So that's okay to have clumsy conversations. Is there, should there be more of a responsibility on people receiving that feedback to receive it in the way that it was intended?

Yeah, and look, I suppose it boils down to trust. Like if you trust somebody, then you're gonna forgive them. A lot more than if you don't have that basic level of trust. So look, I think there's so much work that needs to be done in, in terms of increasing trust. I've, like, um, psychological safety facilitator, did the Amy Edmondson certification. And I think just even something as simple as on a team setting, having a check-in where, you know, you're asking everyone like how they are, um, in that team setting, that kind of, you know, everyone is busy and you can just get straight into, to business, or you they can actually get to know each other on that kind of human level. And I think that's really important. And it's important for, you know, from the perspective of role modeling that as a leader. So that's certainly something that I would do. I think I was chatting with you when I was running to pick up a child there recently, and I had to ring one of my team and say, "I'm not dodging that finance meeting. I actually have to go to the school." Just happily it coincided with that meeting. Kidding, edit that bit out.

Scott.

But I rang and said, look, can somebody fill in for me on that? And I just said, I had a finance cut and someone of the team was, and I said, will you just tell her to make sure, it was a big group, make sure you mention why I'm late. You know, so I want to give the signal and role model that that's fine if you have to run and pick up a sick child. So I think a lot of the, if leaders role model that little bit of humanity, that little bit of vulnerability, well then maybe people will, cut them a bit more slack.

Follow suit. Absolutely. And interesting, that point there about checking in with people at the beginning of a meeting rather than just getting down to the work. Like, that to me just seems like the very basis of just being a nice human being. And I wonder, do you think that the way that we're working now, and since COVID obviously we had 2 years of not really seeing each other at all. And then now we're in a situation where we might still not really see each other at all because you work on a Monday and a Tuesday in the office and I work on a Wednesday and a Thursday.

So we don't see each other from month to month.

I wonder, do you think, is connection suffering? The idea of connection between people and their teams, their colleagues, their work, their organizations, is that under threat?

Yeah, and funny, I actually think people got to know each other better in the whole, and obviously that was different when everyone was working remotely. But certainly, you know, if you had kids, you couldn't hide that you had kids. People got to know each other's partners, pets, whatever it is. So you got to see, like, people were practically in your kitchen or your front room or wherever it was that you were working out of. So I think that kind of broke down barriers a little bit. I do think you're right though, you have to be more intentional about it. But I also think that culture is not contingent upon being co-located. So, you know, for years I worked in JPMorgan, one of my best bosses, and it wasn't because she wasn't co-located, but she was out in New York and we actually never met, but we had a video conference Every week we spoke and we had real clarity of her expectations. Something goes wrong, let me know in half, within the first half hour, you know, if something is going absolutely pear-shaped in terms of HR operations, I'll get out of your way then, you can go and sort it out. So I think you just have to be a bit more intentional about it. And I think Nick Bloom, who I would follow out of Stanford in terms of, has been doing a longitudinal study of both hybrid and fully remote working for, I don't know, 10 years now or something like, I would say you just need to meet on a fairly regular basis. So I think it's great when you bump into people, but even if you meet once a month and teams get together, you'll still get the kind of, you know, the impacts. I know it depends on people earlier in their career might need more check-in, but I think they can happen virtually. And in my experience from all of my teams, certainly across the 3 years I was with Enterprise Ireland, the teams were brilliant about making sure made sure that they came in on days that people were in and really, you know, so I think if you've got a good team charter, a good set of, you know, rules within the team, then that'll take care of itself.

And that intentionality. And I think that's, I think if people take nothing more away from this episode than that word, be more intentional, I think that's incredibly important. Let's talk a little bit about wellbeing. You touched on wellbeing earlier on and Brian's here and a a past podcast guest. We'll put a link to his episode in the show notes.

Right. You're welcome, Brian.

But talk, that'll be, that means Brian will go up to 4 listens. Talk to me a little bit about wellbeing, because it strikes me that we look at wellbeing and we're doing it for the right reasons, but a yoga day here a smoothie-making bike there, a walk around the block on a Friday in a culture that might not be the best culture in the world strikes me as trying to, you know, paper over a crack the size of, you know, the size of the Grand Canyon. How do we make sure that wellbeing doesn't just become papering over cracks? How do we really, really embed it in the culture of organizations?

Yeah, look, I think we need to also make sure that people People aren't scared to start anything in relation to wellbeing. So I would say you have to start somewhere. And in the Office of Government Procurement, I had done a lot of work there with my fabulous team, but we were starting from a very low base. I think we were at 45% in an employee engagement survey. I used to slag, "What were you doing to people before I arrived?" But eventually, after a lot of work, we got up to 80% in terms of that. But honestly, I think we have to be careful not to put people under too much pressure I think people worry, you know, about tackling wellbeing if it looks like such a huge task. I do think you're always, you know, you have to take an integrated approach. And I know Olivia's in the audience here as well, who's done a huge amount of work in Enterprise Ireland in terms of that. And in both organizations there in our people strategy, we had a wellbeing pillar, but it was reinforced by every other element. So even if you, you didn't look at the wellbeing, you're looking at, you know, career. Do people have, you know, purposeful work, quality work to do? You know, does it play to their strengths? Are you developing them? Are you giving them, you know, leadership supports if they're in that leadership role? Right down to, you know, opportunities to volunteer in other ways. So in Enterprise Ireland, we had a pillar, Readiness for the Future. So lots of kind of CSR, climate action, green committees as well. So there's a lot of evidence linking, you know, high engagement with the ability to give back. I think Gallup have linked those two very strongly. So things like that may not on the face look like a wellbeing initiative, but giving people the ability to do, you know, volunteer activities, give back to the community, they're all other facets and other elements of wellbeing as well. Empowering people to, you know, getting out of their way in terms of good leadership, good coaching, coaching, um, support, values, purpose, and work, understanding why they come into work. So I think it's really, really important to take that integrated approach.

Yeah, and that's a really nice point. And I think that the challenge is that so often we do the well-being on one hand, and it generally will focus like mental, mental health, you know, well-being from mental health perspective is very trendy now, um, and, and importantly so. And I think people, you know, let's have a mental healthy, but on the other hand, they have toxic bosses, they have toxic cultures, people are working all the hours that God sends, they're coming in early, they're going home late, they're working weekends, they're answering their phone on a Sunday morning. How do we stop that? How do we make wellbeing just part and parcel threaded through the organization?

And again, I think it needs leaders to role model that and to signal that that's okay. So I remember in the OGP, we'd gone for the CIPD award. We didn't win it, and I'm glad we didn't in that year. I knew we wouldn't because when they had said, you know, asked how much of a kind of HR initiative versus an organizational initiative it was, you know, couldn't answer that honestly. It was very much kind of a HR kind of program. But I suppose being asked that question really challenged me to go away and speak to the one team in particular who didn't engage with any of the sports and speak to them to find out why. Exactly that. Like, there's no point in going to one of your many wellbeing webinars and then being stuck later under even more pressure. So they were very open to it, they wanted to, but they were just like, we can't right now. So we brought— we had an annual kind of conference in terms of very much procurement-focused, and we brought the wellbeing on, like, following discussion with them, onto that agenda. So organizationally company that was being positioned, you know, as important to people in terms of that day out. So it's kind of given them permission and that really kind of shifted things in terms of people going, okay, so the CEO has put this on the agenda, this is recognized as, you know, equally important. And then on the plus side, I didn't have to listen to a full day of procurement at the conference. Edit that bit out, should I?

I'm very sorry. I'm really sorry to any people who work in procurement or listening to this episode or indeed in the audience. We'll probably cut that bit out after. Actually, we probably won't because we don't really, we never really cut anything out of anything. But I guess back to that question I asked earlier on about the responsibility of employees in organizations, our colleagues, that when it comes to wellbeing, how important is it for them to take a role in that, to actually be the ones that steer that for themselves? Themselves. We can provide the tools, uh, you know, the whole teach a man to fish kind of idea, I suppose. But we can provide the tools and we can find the opportunity, but actually we hear lots of people who'll be like, well, I couldn't be bothered to go to that.

Okay, well, and there's some great questions, Scott, and I think that's exactly it. In, in any kind of, you know, of the well-being and strategies, people strategies, it's all predicated on having willing volunteers. And I think people respond to that so much better. So, you know, it's very much led by people coming up with suggestions. So one of the initiatives in Enterprise Ireland in terms of running club, et cetera, was just employee-led, 100%. We put supports around and kind of, you know, gave it some spotlight in terms of internal communications. But people really respond to that when it is led by one of their own colleagues. And, you know, loads of wonderful ideas across many organizations are absolutely based on somebody volunteering or somebody maybe doing a mindfulness session because they've, you know, that's an interest or passion of theirs outside of work. And again, it's just good value when you're on a budget in terms of the public sector, but also really gets people engaged in it and I suppose interested in a way that they might not be if it's seen as a corporate initiative.

Yeah, and it very much talks to that idea that not all leaders have epaulettes, not all leaders have stripes, that we have those informal leaders down through our organizations who people will naturally follow if those people people are given the opportunity to lead.

100%. Yeah, yeah.

Um, finishing up, if you think about building a strong and aligned culture in an organization, people are listening to this and they're going, well, I don't know where to start with that. What's the most important thing that teams should focus on? What should they do first?

I think it's giving people a voice. So for teams, I think it's having, you know, we talked about that intentionality, but having team charters, having conversation and inviting voices in. You know, I've said leaders, you know, need to role model, etc., and leaders can certainly go first in terms of that, but really giving people a voice in terms of what works well for this team and making people feel they're going to buy into it that much more if it's coming from them. It's representative of what that team wants and that team, you know, really needs.

So that whole idea of of those leaders being able to translate and contextualize for their teams and say, well, if we want to make it better, what do we need to do? And that whole idea of those little micro changes across the breadth of an organization rolling up then to a big change at the top.

100%. And I think that's how organizations work best. And I know Kevin Empie is there in the audience, and I would've certified in Agile HR with Kevin and with some others. But that idea of organizational boundary spanning planning. Like, really, that's how the work gets done. That's how you get collaboration. It's not generally through the most senior leaders sitting down and working something out. It's the people who are doing the actual work and who are having those conversations. So I think that's where, you know, you need to put a lot of time and focus into.

And what a great place to finish. Uh, Catherine, thanks very much for being here. Really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders in our podcasts, to read our blogs, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.