142 | Navigating Accountability for Values | Karen Jones & Karen Hackett

We have to define what we mean by culture. We also have to make core values super tangible.

We have to give people the confidence and also the confidence to get it wrong and understanding this is not about you, but it's about the situation.

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. Really excited today to get into the fourth challenge in our Mind the Gap report, and that challenge being accountability for values. And I'm delighted to have, actually rather confusingly, we'll sort this out in a second, two Karens on. That wasn't particularly well planned. Not Karens in that sense of the word, but actually they're both called Karen. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go with Karen Jones from Denison. We're gonna call her KJ for the purposes of today's podcast. And then we've got Karen Hackett from Permanent TSB, one of Ireland's three leading banks. As usual, please, if you get two seconds as you're listening, go in, give us a 4 or 5-star rating and just put in a wee comment about the podcast, please. We do put a huge amount of effort into finding brilliant guests to bring you super messages and ideas and thoughts and just little things to get you going. If you could in return, just take two minutes just to give us that review. That'd be really, really appreciated because it does help to get the podcast out there. Thank you very much. So, into today's guests, Karen Jones, KJ as you're going to be known for today's podcast. Just maybe let's kick off by you telling us a little about yourself and where you are, what you do.

I am the managing director for Denison Europe, and I'm really responsible for developing new partners who want to use our diagnostics as well as doing direct consulting with our clients. So Denison specializes in really looking at organizational health and diagnosing the organizational culture in a really tangible way that enables leaders and managers to first define culture, 'cause it's often a very nebulous concept, measure it, and then start to have some amazing conversations and dialogues with their teams around it.

Brilliant stuff. And I know that the one thing I always say is whenever I'm doing a diagnostic, whether it be with you, Karen, or one of our own internal ones is the numbers are the numbers and that's fine, but actually it's the conversation that happens after the numbers that makes a real difference. So spot on, thank you. Karen Hackett.

Hi, Scott, and great to be here with you both today actually and have this conversation. So me, so Karen Hackett, Head of People at PTSB, as you mentioned, it's a retail bank in the Republic of Ireland with 3,500 colleagues. 1.3 million customers, and our purpose is to work together every day to build trust with our customers and our communities. So my role, I work with leaders, I work with colleagues across the bank to bring our purpose to life. I listen to colleagues to understand, to create consistent colleague experiences that enable better customer experiences. I myself, I've worked in financial services for over 30 years, started off in retail banking as a banker, Moved into HR, I'm over 25 years working across different HR units, and my role has continued to evolve each and every year, so change is really the constant for me. And I'm really excited about today's conversation because since 2020, I've been directly responsible for leading the evolution of culture across PTSB through DEI, engagement, wellbeing, living as leaders, together with how our behaviour shows up in terms of conduct. So, the better we are at understanding how to do these things, the less challenges we have in terms of that good colleague conduct. There's a huge variety, really satisfying, and it's great to be able to share a bit of the journey with you and with KJ today. So, looking forward to the conversation.

Brilliant, brilliant. Thanks, Karen. So, as I said in the open, today we're talking about that fourth challenge that we found in the report that we did earlier in the year. In case I forget to say it later on, because I probably will, because I'm 52, if you want to get the report, pop along to inspiringchange.ie/challenge4. Mind the Gap, all one word. We'll put that link in the show notes as well. We asked you to think about accountability for values. That was one of the themes that came out of the conversations that I had with those CPOs earlier in the year. KJ, was there anything in this challenge that particularly caught your eye or surprised you? And oh my God, I can't believe that's in there, that's a surprise. Anything?

I think it's the word weaponized. I was quite shocked when I, when I saw that word and I just thought, "Wow, that's a word that goes deep into some kind of emotion." I think accountability is something that lots of people struggle with, not just for values, but having those tough conversations. But weaponized, I think, just took me back a bit.

Interesting. Thanks. Karen. Karen, any thoughts from your perspective generally?

Yeah, I think overall, I suppose, when I, when I review the report, there was nothing in surprise really in one sense, but I actually felt the report really resonated with me. And I do get that point about the weaponized, but for me, actually, I think I thought about— there's one sentence that really struck me in it. So, values only matter if people are held accountable for really living them. Now, interesting enough, what resonated with me was really living them. And it's one line in it, and in order for somebody to be held accountable, you have to understand what really living them means. So, um, it's one line, but actually when I look at the plan, the practical steps really resonate in terms of how we live them. And I think, and the report is very well constructed because when you think about it, um, you know, the accountability for values You have to know what your values are, you have to understand your values to enable anyone to hold anyone accountable. So, I thought it was really well put together. And I think for me, while I think there's nothing of surprise because it aligns to my own cultural evolution, I do think the opportunity lies in that sentence. So, I think it's a brilliant sentence.

Yeah, so tell me, Karen, while you're on, What does accountability for values look like in practice? And you said there that we're asking people to be accountable, but in order for that to happen, they first have to understand them, which suggests there's perhaps a role for the organization as well. And I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Yeah, and look, I've thought about this because, interesting enough, I downloaded the report when I heard it was out there to have a look at it, aligned to our own, I suppose, our own cultural evolution. But for me, actually, when I thought about it, back in 2020, we considered how do you actually bring values to life? So, values can be on the wall, but the first thing you have to understand is the 4 steps: articulation, socialization, embedding, and sustaining. So, the first thing you have to do, and I think you've mentioned it yourself during conversations we've had, you know, values can be on a wall, and they'll stay on a wall as long as nobody understands what they mean. So, they have to be articulated, and they have to be articulated by your people. And for them to actually mean something, aligned to the purpose and aligned to the business strategy, and taking the time to actually understand what they mean. And we've done that through behavior articles, and we've, we've taken about a year to actually work them through and understand what they are in terms of our culture and what they mean, and the practical steps to follow, and the benefits of living these values. Because they have to become real for somebody then to be able to be measured against them, and held accountable. So, that's really where it starts for me around that articulation point.

And I think it's funny if you cast your mind back to 2017, when I was actually doing a bit of work in PTSB, and we put together the VIP Awards, the Values in Practice Awards, which has gone on year on year to become bigger and bigger. But that kind of does two things. It celebrates the values, but it also allows you to dig into and find stories of where they've really come to life and where people, to use a word you just used there, have benefited from them.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And like we have determined, so I think it starts, and if we go back to that 2017 perspective, the first thing we had to look at is what is our culture? So what do we want our culture to be? And at PTSB, it's the way we do things, being open, inclusive, building trust, and acting in a unified manner as one PTSB. So that articulation then, we put everyone through a process in partnership with Lift Ireland to actually immerse themselves in our values, to understand what they are. It's a weekly round table system. So everybody understands what they look like like in action. And whether you're the newest person in or the person's here the longest or the most senior person, you can actually understand what it feels like to live our values and reflect on them. And then in terms of, you know, the end-to-end experience at PTSB, it's how your values thread through, how you can enable feedback, and then how you can recognize when it's done well. So aligned to those values in practice, we have VIPs every day So, we have a very short, well done to somebody aligned to this value, and this is what you did. And then we have our annual awards. So, it's to really embed the culture, and it's not about the task, it's about how the task was done in achieving the outcome. And we've a council as well, People Experience Council, and you can only be on it if you're actually an exemplar of the values. And you actually support your exco and your SLT around embedding practices in terms of feedback on culture. So we, we do run a diagnostic to check how people are doing. Um, do I feel I'm living the values? Do I feel my manager is? Do I feel my senior leader is? Do I feel my ex-co is? And we can look at that right down to 8, a group of 8, because it's confidential, to assess, I suppose, how that promise is being lived. And then we put in place an action plan to address any, um, areas where we need to drive out inconsistency. And we would say we don't want 100%. What we want is a consistent cultural experience right across the bank, 70% or above. And we want that experience so our customers will feel it. And that's what we believe makes a difference to us. So, it's literally embedded, planned, actioned, and those colleagues actually report to our ex-com board twice a year around their action plans. And we also celebrate what's going well because we share the best practice to try and help colleagues. The thing I didn't mention at the start is We're distributed across Ireland, so we've 100 branches, we've head office, and we're trying to create consistency right across the board. We recognize that there's different subcultures necessary in different locations, so 70% is sufficient, you know?

Yeah, yeah, brilliant. And when I think about that, that's really interesting. And that whole idea of subcultures is probably one for next season to have a conversation about, because I actually, I think subcultures get a bit of a bad rap, but actually, as long as they're being fed from one consistent overarching organizational culture, actually, It's okay, because people's contexts are all different. So, I don't mind that too much. KJ, when we think about, you know, I get back to that accountability for values in practice piece, of course, you're working with lots of organizations all around the world. So, what have you taken from those experiences? Obviously, Karen's bringing it from one perspective, from PTSD. You're seeing it in lots of organizations, in lots of contexts, with lots of challenges.

Well, in terms of how we define a high-performance kind of culture or good organizational health at Denison, you know, core values is one of 12 indexes for us. So, it kind of sits in that being stable and internal, but it needs to connect, you know, I think we, one of the other indexes for us is purpose. You know, and when we ask people about purpose, you know, there's a line item on that, that says, statement that says, You know, how often does the short-term compromise the long-term vision? And I think whenever I see a low score on that, there's an interesting connection back to, are the leaders and managers really walking the talk in this business? What are the guiding principles from their core values? Does it really help that organization say, actually, we could do that in the short term, which might give us more profit, but actually that compromises our long-term vision, so we're gonna be prepared not to? So, for me, it's that connecting the core values piece back to strategic aspiration, delivering for your stakeholders in adaptability piece, and in teams and individuals really experiencing that brand, the external brand that your stakeholders want to experience, but as part of your teams and from your leaders and managers. I suppose what I'm always amazed about— I was, you know, with a very senior leadership team yesterday. I take it a step back. I'm not sure that all senior leaders understand their own personal values and the contribution that that makes to the decisions that they make in their own life. And, and for me, often it's about going back and saying, how important are your own personal values to what you will and will not do and the choices that you want to make? And how do you begin to understand how your teams and colleagues want— need to experience your own organizational values in that same deep way. Because if they're the values we've got, there are certain things we should not be doing. And I think it's almost— and which is no different to where I choose to live, the jobs I choose to have, the people I choose as friends. And I think we almost need to take a step back and say, actually, this is really important stuff. And I'm a bit horrified, there's lots of senior leaders that cannot rattle off their core values at me. And they've not done that embedding piece that says, okay, if this is our core values, how do we actually bring that to life? You know, that's fantastic work that Scott does with us, you know, how do we really define We have to define what we mean by culture. We also have to make core values super tangible. Here's what you can expect from leaders. Here's what the business will expect from you. Here's actually what we are not going to tolerate. But, you know, and before we can be accountable, we have to, you know, as you say, we have to build a culture of feedback. And that is rare. And, you know, I think your document says, you know, that people don't want to hold each other to account because there's a worry that they'll upset people. I think our real fear is that people won't like me as a manager or a leader if I do that. And that's, again, that's going back a step further to say, actually, you have to be prepared for that as a leader and manager, to stand for what you what this company is saying you need to stand for. So that's the whole emotional intelligence training bit, which is a broader kind of set of skills. So I think it's complex and it's very personal and it's very emotional. And we have to be prepared to go down there.

Yeah, and I think for me, the challenge always comes, and we talk about making decisions through the lens of the values, and that's really, for me, when the rubber hits the road. And that rubber really it really hits the road when there's money involved.

Well, and I often say to leaders at the end of a big meeting, do you reflect on the decisions that have been made? And do you say, how do those decisions align to our core values? And most of them go, no, we've never done that.

Or they say yes, and you know they're lying.

Well, hopefully, we've built enough trust for them not to lie to me anymore, Scott. They know better than to do that.

Yes, they do. Yes, they do.

So I think it's, you know, your practical steps are really spot on. Holding to account, we have to be comfortable with feedback. And most of us, when we hear feedback, we hear criticism. And this is actually about sharing intention before we give the feedback. So, and I think people need to learn how to give feedback well, because it's not a skill that's out there in abundance.

And I think it's actually, it's give feedback well and take feedback well and give and receive in the way in which it was probably intended. I think it's really important as well to start to think about that.

Well, that's why we need to say, my intention in having this conversation is this. If it doesn't land like that, then feel free to let me know.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. At Inspiring Change, we help our clients to implement sustainable change, 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 touch. Simply visit our website at www.inspiringchange.ie for more. Let me go back to something that you both mentioned in the opening, and that was this idea that was in the report about the weaponization of values, about values being weaponized in the workplace by employees and managers and leaders alike. What does that look like in organizations, do you think? Have you seen it? Have you felt it, Karen?

I think for me, what it looks like is people don't either— I think people shy away from giving feedback, first of all. I think there's the what and there's the how when you give. So, I work in financial services, and I find people are much more comfortable talking numbers biggers, um, you know, um, you've done brilliant here because of X, you know, you need to work harder here because of Y. They're very tangible, they're very straightforward things to say. I think when you're talking about behavior and behavioral feedback, it's more personal, and people feel it more personally in trying to actually articulate it, and they're concerned about how it's going to be received in terms of of opening up and providing that feedback. And I think it's more an emotional connection to that feedback. So, again, I would find that people, number one, try and shy away from it in certain circumstances if they haven't internalized the values, understand what they mean, and can articulate feedback aligned to an example of a behavior, how it's showing up. How it's manifesting and what needs to happen differently. And also, I think they're not comfortable doing it timely. So therefore, you know, once— if you haven't taken the opportunity to do it in time, it won't happen. But I think some of it comes down again to culture and psychological safety. So I would find people shy away from us, and more so than anything, and might use excuses in terms of, but I couldn't say that, or I wouldn't be sure about the culture, or anything else. But I think You know, what we've done is really looked around inclusion and respect, and we've done an awful lot around Speak Freely, which is really being open in our open value to give and receive feedback. But we've done it through using examples, funny enough. So we've the Living as Leaders roundtable series, and at the end of it, you provide a reflection on how you've got on with the value in the last week. It shows a bit of vulnerability and one step you're going to make. And we have leaders with colleagues undertaking the same kind of conversations to open up more conversation around behaviour. And then we have Speak Freely, whereby we are using a character called Saoirse, which came from our employee resource groups, and examples of where behaviour may have gone wrong or ethical dilemmas to again give an example of what happened with Saoirse. Did Saoirse speak up? What did Saoirse do? What Saoirse should have done? And again, trying to help share, you know, where things have been challenging, how to open up constructively and to make it easier. So that's a big part. But I think critical conversations, and again, being able to lean on the behaviour article as well to say, right, what does accountability look like? Now, when Karen did this, you know, well, actually, did she realise she made me feel in such a way, or whatever that conversation is, and trying to give people practical tools tools and an understanding that in this organization we expect those kind of conversations. So, it has to— we have to give people the confidence and also the confidence to get it wrong so that then when they get into these conversations, you can be more open to listening and receiving and understanding this is not about you, but it's about the activity or the situation, do you know?

It's not personal, absolutely. It's about the behavior and not about the person. It's that old adage of playing the I always get it the wrong way around, playing the ball and not the man. I think that's the thing. Maybe it's the other way around. I don't know. I'm crap at football, as we all know. I think there's that piece around, I think in the report and what was described to me was that whole idea of the weaponization of the values being, well, you're not being respectful to me and that's one of our values, or you're not being inclusive and that's one of our values. And people actually using the values that way to perhaps defend or protect themselves. I think that was kind of where that whole idea of weaponization organization came from. Um, KJ, any thoughts?

Yeah, loads. I mean, I, I kind of, I kind of challenge when, when somebody says to me, it's not personal, my first response is, well, actually it is, but that's okay. Because, and that, I think you're right, defense, there's a lot of defensiveness out there. And I think we do need to make a distinction between what am I doing and how am I being. And the being bit is personal, okay? But I think we're much, as Karen said, we're much more comfortable with talking task and doing, but actually, we also need to become much more comfortable about talking about the being. And I think for us, when on our kind of definition of high-performance culture, your psychological safety sits in the organizational learning piece. You know, how much blame is in this organization? Is it okay to look at mistakes? Mistakes and make sure that they don't become repeated and end up in defects, because we want people to be up there saying, "God, I could have done that better," and how could we link that to creating change. We also, under capability development, look at delegation of authority. How much trust do we have? How much control do our leaders want? Do they delegate authority? And we then wanna connect that with the levels of empowerment. You know, if I'm gonna delegate authority, do I make sure you get the information that you need? Do I allow decisions to be made where the best information is held? How are we gonna create change and learn from that? So, it's interconnected as part of the high performance culture piece or the organizational health piece. And that's why I think to have leaders and managers that are kind of aware of the complexity that they have to integrate. Becomes super powerful, but it is personal, Scott.

Yeah. And it's that whole idea that we can talk about accountability for values, but we have to make sure that, to your point there, which is really well made, that people have the information that they need, that they understand the systems and the processes, that they're given the opportunity to go off and do the work. It's all of that as well, isn't it? It's not just saying, well, you have to be respectful, or you have to be innovative, or you have to live your best self every day, if that's one of our values.

And we have to set clear goals and objectives in the mission, so I know what I'm empowered to do and where my permission finishes. You know, that's why the culture is about holistic and systemic delivery that's clear and aligned. So, you know, there's a lot to it.

Yeah. So, let's talk about, so based on what you just said there, KJ, the, I'm quite enjoying this, I might actually call you that from now on. It's nice. Based on what we spoke about there, the manager is at the center of all of this, right? Because they're the ones that interact with people on a daily basis. So, I think something that certainly I keep seeing, I don't know if you guys keep seeing it, is this whole idea that manager level is still underinvested in from a capability development perspective, particularly. We pluck people who are really, really good SMEs out of roles, we put them in as team leaders, and we go, "Here, work away, go and do that. You're really good at writing code, or you're extremely good lawyer or accountant, now lead a team, and we expect them to be really, really good at it. So, when you think about managers shying away from difficult conversations in terms of that accountability piece, and you've both kind of alluded to it already, what do you think that organizations— and Karen, I'll come to you first on this— what do you think that organizations can do to give managers the skills and the confidence to actually have those conversations?

Yeah, thanks very much. And look, I think, first of all, in terms of managers, they have a pivotal role in the organization. And the way we would think about it is like their job is to release the energy of the people. So, they are the leaders of the bank. And basically, their job is to release that energy in a consistent manner to deliver on the bank's purpose and to build trust with customers, to hold their colleagues to the heart, and to make sure that we deliver a consistent experience. So, for us, it starts off with to help managers, the first thing we need to help everybody to do is understand our culture. Culture. And we have a very simple culture charter which sets out exactly what we expect, um, as the overarching piece in PTSB. And everybody goes through that culture charter every year in a roundtable, um, and it's a personalized letter from our CEO. So we dedicate an hour once a year for every team to go through that, and we reflect on it to make sure it's aligned to our strategy But I mentioned it earlier on, then we use the Living as Leaders as a mechanism to help people understand what the values are. It's foundational, it's a guided roundtable which is facilitated. It doesn't have to be the manager, but it helps to embed the how behaviors. And that gives infrastructure and teeth to how you can actually help people and everyone. So that's time, and I think time is precious and it's really important to people managers to enable them to do it. And then we reinforce it through, aligned to the report, then integrating it into hiring and onboarding. So we actually check for values in terms of hiring and onboarding people, make sure, you know, we understand if there's a difference in terms of that alignment, and can people work in the environment we have. And then we look at how do we recognize those practices. So again, coming down to help people understand the guardrails that are available to them, how they can manage within them. But I think for people managers, we do, a lot around micro-size learnings for things like performance, attendance, hybrid working, and to support people in getting the best out of their people. And then we have a look to see, right, what do we need more specifically in how you set objectives, SMART objectives, how you provide feedback. And then depending on, we measure, similar to Jennison, we have a culture culture index with 20 questions, actually. It ranges from purpose to wellbeing to DEI, but there's a fair big part on it on our values. And we have a culture index for every team. We go as far as 8, and we work with every team in terms of how to help them drive that consistency. For some, it may be that they're overburdened in something. For others, it may be they just don't have the practical understanding in something and we work with them and plan with them through their business partners, through their leadership to drive forward. But most of the things I find would be practical things around tech and tools to do my job, space to enable me to manage my team, you know, really simple things and induction and making sure that people are inducted correctly into the organization so that they have the networks and the infrastructure to do their job well. So that's what I find really key.

Brilliant. And I find it really interesting, and you touched on it there, Karen, time. That we expect our people leaders to do all of this, what they might see as being other stuff on top of the day job, because we also expect them to do a day job, that they're still doing the job, but they don't necessarily have the time. So there might be the will there, there might be the capability and the confidence there, but there's just not the time. So, I guess it's for organizations, perhaps listeners to think about, well, how can I afford my people a little bit more time. And I love that line about managers, a manager's job is to release the energy of their people. I love that. We may well see that later on LinkedIn at some point. So just keep an eye out. KJ, you work with lots of organizations in lots of different sectors, in lots of different contexts. What is it you're seeing? How do you think, or what have you seen organizations do to help leaders to have those skills, to have those, what we might term difficult conversations, Well, first of all, we always see the squeeze in that middle managers.

When we segment the data, the color begins to drain when you get to those middle managers, and my heart absolutely goes out to them. I think they've got the toughest job. They've gotta be strategically connected, and they've gotta be operationally on it. So, I think they've got the hardest job, and as Karen said, they've got the greatest reach. So, in terms of bringing the culture alive, they are probably the most significant. I mean, okay, we know it's led from the top. Top, but they're the key groupings, I think. My sense, for me, it kind of comes back to how that mission to involvement, the dynamic tension is managed. They're often not involved enough. They're the people implementing the strategic aspirations. But I think that, you know, my sense is there's a belief from senior leaders out there that somehow they're responsible for the strategy. That they make in a dark room, and then they chuck it over the fence to the managers to implement. And I think understanding that that's the kind of iterative process, we always see middle managers saying, "Can we have more inclusion in the business planning process, please? Can we have more discussion and debate?" There's always a— the senior managers have got a lot more clarity, they've, you know, a lot more color, they feel clear and aligned, but their ability to cascade that down down, even sometimes to the next level, is surprisingly distant. And so, I'm really, I'm not sure there's a kind of an acceptance that as a senior leader, it's okay for me to iterate the strategy with the managers that are really going to be doing the implementation. It's almost as if, well, that's my job to do it, and I should just get on and do it, and that's what I get paid for. And I think we're missing something in that inclusive process.

So, are you suggesting that because that process isn't happening, that that middle manager layer doesn't feel as though they've got the knowledge, the experience, the know-all, or whatever, to have those conversations with people, those difficult accountability conversations with their people?

It would be interesting to know what Karen's view on it. We don't have that kind of feedback loop. It doesn't seem very common. You know, we often see the middle managers kind of giving low scores on strategic direction and intent. It isn't because there isn't one. It's often because they're frustrated with how it's come to fruition.

Yeah, I'd have, interesting enough, our purpose and values. So, one of the things that we look at is purpose and values. And we would find that we have a very high percentage of colleagues say they understand our purpose and values. But again, that's because we drive it. And I do agree with you, the 4 areas of attention that come up every year, we theme them in terms of our Every Voice Counts survey. And we have very high participation rates, like with 3,500 people, I'd have over 2,200 lines of suggestions, which shows really huge engagement. And the same in what's working really well. So we've really continued, um, a really good culture in terms of people engaging, friendly, open. Um, I think they do shy away a little bit from those difficult conversations, but in understanding our purpose and values, the big thing is communicating it simply. And that's one of the big things we've learned. So, you know, it might be very complex at an executive level where you're working through and strategizing. And then when you bring it down into our people, it has to be so succinct and connected to what they do every day. And even in terms of where do I fit into this, I always think of the NASA example when, you know, you're asking the janitor where do they, you know, how do they form part of this organization and the purpose. And that's so important. If we don't understand how we fit into the equation, we don't have any energy energy. We can't actually get involved in this. And so that's where I see it, and we would look out for that. And again, I would say where there's good people managers, there's good people, and then we've good customers. It all connects, and we've proven it year on year. We can see that value. So the job is to look at where you've got those challenges. And is it that the people manager hasn't been given the time to train? Is it that they're not connected to the purpose? Is it that they, they don't have the confidence to give that feedback? But that's where the work is required. And it's not— so that's why I would always say 70% consistently. So it's to look for where the dips are in the culture index. And for one, it could be a very different requirement to another. And again, Scott, to your earlier point around microcultures, there could be a different climate in the particular part and location that results in a different dynamic and ability. Like, we have 60— on any given day, 60, 60, 60. To 72 different nationalities. And some of our teams would be extremely diverse, intergenerational, we have 6 generations. So, again, feedback looks very different in those environments. And maybe you have, you know, you've reverse mentoring, you have different things going on to help people. But sometimes the confidence isn't there to drive through what's needed to be driven through. And it may be understanding the different nature of respect. So, there's an awful lot of, requirements on a people manager, and there's an awful lot of assistance required. But I think you're nearly coming into pointed solutions right across our organizations with kind of an overarching infrastructure that helps more broadly. And we need to look at where we need to help people and enable them through these scenarios, you know.

But of course, when I think what's really interesting is back to the point about time that was made earlier on, if you're trying to think about really pointed solutions, you know, real arrow kind of solutions where You're saying, well, you know, Jimmy is 52 and Saoirse is 24, and we've got Michael over there who's 68 'cause he wanted to do a few more years. So I'm now, as a leader, I've gotta think about, well, geez, how do I manage all of these people differently? And it's layering more pressure on me, which is really, really hard. KJ, do you wanna jump in?

Yeah, a couple of thoughts. I wanna come back to the work that Scott does on turning strategy into story, because that for me is super powerful. Most leaders don't do a great job about being more creative, but if they have a story, how— I would love to see that kind of, that story cascading further down in the organization. How do we help managers create the story for their teams? We talk a lot about feeling empowered. And that is about really understanding what is my contribution to that bigger purpose, and indeed those short-term goals and objectives, and the strategic priority that I know I'm making an impact on. So, story is really super important. And I think that's a skill that's often lacking.

Yeah, that red thread. How do you draw the red thread for somebody that works on a frontline in a branch, in Ballina all the way back to the CEO's desk in Stephen's Green in Dublin. So yeah, no, it's a million-dollar question. Listen, we're kind of heading towards the final furlong of the conversation, which has been fabulous so far. So actually what I want to do is, as we get towards the end, I kind of want to go back to the beginning of the employee journey, the employee experience. And of course, that's when they join. And Karen, you mentioned this earlier on, and That's how do we better embed values and behaviors into onboarding? What have you seen that's worked really well? And what have you seen, or maybe tried, if you're feeling a little vulnerable this afternoon, what have you tried that hasn't worked? Maybe, Karen, I'll come to you first, and then we'll go to KJ, and then we'll wrap up.

Yeah, very good. So, for me, it kind of starts even before you onboard somebody. I think you have to decide, are you bringing people in within, again, guardrails on what we think is our culture, where we want people to actually get involved. And we have our values, and fundamentally, it's all about building trust. So, we're looking for people who are comfortable and are inspired by building trust with colleagues and customers and wider communities. And we do psychometric at that stage, but what we do is, that's not the overriding exciting decision for somebody joining, but it enables conversation around what does this mean to you, your purpose and alignment, to ensure, I suppose, that you're a good fit for this organization starting off. So, outside of the technical, the competence, it's really around, you know, do you actually engage with our values, engage with our purpose? So, when somebody is onboarding then, as I would say, induction is really important. And as part of our induction, and we try different things, as I say, pre-COVID, we would have had in-person induction. From COVID onwards then, we had virtual induction. And this works very well where we have big intakes. But I think the challenge is actually when you might have only a small intake, and particularly in our branch network around the country, and maybe they don't have the ability, you know, to come to Stephen's Green. And we have to think a bit differently about how we're going to enable people into our values, because as say you have, you know, kind of a different nuance of it right around the country, and you're trying to help deliver that consistency. So there are things we've learned. And, um, again, I suppose I know I keep saying this, but the Living as Leaders has been a way— we did it virtually, and I think it worked more successfully because it was virtual, because you could dial on for 45 minutes and you could be talking to somebody in Donegal, you could be talking to somebody in Kerry, you could be talking to people in different parts or business. But through that process, they have to reflect on something that happened in the last 24 to 48 hours. And the brand new person could be with the CEO. I actually was with board members on occasion. And you're learning, you know, people are vulnerable. And people after a while begin to talk about these, you know, things that have happened, stories in their personal life, because you kind of forget when you're in the midst of reviewing this. And, and it makes it so real and connected. So you're connecting. So that has been brilliant. I think it's been more of a challenge, funny enough, since we've moved back into hybrid because people aren't as available is what I'm finding, back to the time. And I think what we're trying to do is work out how that blend is going to operate for ourselves because it was so effective. Like, we told— over 2,500 people went through our values when it was fully remote. Now we're back to— and we would have always had our branches open, but we picked a time that suited them so we could work around it. So now I think we're having to identify multiple times to enable the connections And, but we'll get there, and, and that's kind of where we're going. So we use, back to the storytelling, stories, real-life examples, and kind of buddy systems through our employee resource groups to bring it to life. And then team commitments charter is the other thing we do. So as part of our team commitments charter, we look at our values and what do they mean in terms of this team, and how are we going to apply them in actually delivering on our team objectives. And we ask them to review that twice a year. But, um, I think what works well is where, um, teams commit to doing it and understand the difference it makes. But it enables psychologically safe environments and, um, and the ability to be able to say, listen, I have a problem today, I won't be able to do what's on that team commitments chart, or can somebody help me? And can we work out how we're going to—

and it also breeds the opportunity in the environment in which people then hold each other to account. And then it's not all about the leader holding the team to account, which I think is much, much more powerful sometimes. Karen, over to you, last word. Talk to me about onboarding. What have you seen?

I suppose my last word on that is that the companies that have done our organizational culture diagnostic, I'm always kind of surprised how many may or may not use that for even higher even before you get on onboarding, because I would be inspired if I was being interviewed and somebody said, "Here's the current culture that we've got. What do you think you can bring to expanding the clarity and alignment that we wanna get to in that?" So it's not just core values, it's kind of, "Here's where we currently are." And I mean, they'd have me, they'd have me in. And so my last word is for organizations, be a bit bolder. About model being authentic and saying, here's where we currently are, here's where we'd like to get to, how might you support us to do that? What skills and talent have you got? Tell us about it. I mean, I, I, I'd take the job if they offered it to me, Scott.

They may not, of course, but if anyone's listening that wants to offer Karen a job, then by all means, get— you can get in touch with me and I'll pass it on.

But you know how Let's be bold about what we know. Yeah.

Listen, I'm looking at the time and I'm going to wrap it up there before everyone starts getting giddy. Karen and Karen, thank you so much for coming on. I think it's been a really interesting conversation going through this fourth challenge of accountability for values. Again, if anybody wants to download the full report to look into this in a little bit more detail, you can go to inspiringchange.io. Ie/mindthegap, all one word. Thank you to both of you. Really appreciate you taking the time.

Recommend the report. It's a great read.

Excellent. Yeah, thanks a million.

Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders on our podcasts, to read our blogs, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.