 When we talk about why organizations fail, I mean the focus of this panel specifically would be about one topic that is getting hot again. It was a topic that started a long time ago in the organizational discussions that is organizational culture and got hot first in the 80s, got a little bit fading now in the 90s and now it's strong again when we talk about digital transformation, when we talk about people in organizations as we have seen so far, most of the discussions we had this morning. And this culture is so abstracted topic that sometimes it's difficult to put a hand on it, but the way we are going to talk about culture, at least to start the conversation here, is how things get done here in the organizations. And when we see like the rate of failures, maybe we should talk a little bit about why things don't get done here. You know what I mean? That is a big question, why culture could impact and there's maybe not speeding up an organization. It's actually slowing down organization transformations. So I have here two people that are executives that are managing transformations right now and we will talk with them, but we also have Anna and Perry that have connections with so many organizations and they have a bigger view about what's going on today when you talk about organizational culture and transformation organization. So let's start here. I want to start with Irene that is here. So Irene, if you could tell the people here, the audience here about like your organization and the transformation that you're facing right now and what's the role of culture in what you're facing. Sure, hi. So I'm the Chief Talent Officer at Horizon Media and we are the largest independent media agency and I want to emphasize media as an advertising. I think it was Tiffany who said on a prior panel that everybody's calling themselves a technology company, but I also want to say that everybody's saying that they're a media company and I think both are true. And I think they're also saying that we're all data companies and that is also true. I've been with the company for 15 years and Horizon Media had their 30 year anniversary this year and I've seen many different phases of transformation over the years at the company. We have a very strong culture. We're recognized as a best place to work several times over by several different organizations and associations. We are right now in another major transformation. We are a media company, but sometimes we think we're a technology company, but we're not quite there, but we're absolutely a data company and the biggest transformation that's happening for us right now is in the data and analytics space and it's showing up both with our clients in terms of what our clients are asking for and then we have all the issues of data privacy because we have access to a lot more data than ever before but also from a people perspective and being able to attract talent with the skills that are needed to both do traditional media and what I call the emerging space is quite challenging. So it's both an external and an internal challenge and the internal challenge is we have a lot of people who are core media professionals but they need to retool, they need to reinvent themselves in a way that's going to support the business as it's moving forward in a new direction which includes an emphasis on data and analytics as well as content and I think content is another big play right now for many of the companies specifically within advertising as well. The lines of creative and content are being blurred or quite blurred between media and full service. Okay, amazing. So when you think about culture and your organization like media and media, I mean, it's a sector that was pretty much the same for a long period and they have now like all this influence of data and I mean, maybe you're hiring people that someone said here or hiring people from Google and from other companies. I think you have the same kind of dynamic. How do you think that the way culture is being changed is influencing like the performance of the business and the transformation you're trying to do? Well, culture is key. I mean, I like the definition that we're using but I would like to expand it a little bit in terms of like what is culture? I mean, culture is, it's kind of the DNA of the organization. It's the experience that people have. It's the defining experience that employees have and what they're looking for. And if you don't have a culture that's relevant based on your demographic, then you're already many steps behind. Our company is about 80% millennial and so the need to be relevant to those employees, what it means in terms of the skills, the experiences, the opportunities. We all know it's all about being able to have a gig experience. We have a huge challenge with retention because of that exact issue. And so we're trying to create the gig experience internally and trying to allow for people to rescale, retool and create new opportunities with an increased internal mobility to keep them because we need to improve on retention. So culture plays a huge part in the whole equation. Okay, well, thank you so much. So, Scott, coming to you as a practitioner as well and managing transformation, if you could talk as well a little bit about your organization, the transformation you're passing through and how could you play a role? Sure, so Hitachi Ventara is actually an organization that was formed essentially as an output of the digital transformation that a company called Hitachi Data Systems was going through. So it was the assembly of three different organizations really to go after both market opportunity to transform the company but also most importantly to be receptive to the needs of our customers and the evolution and the threats and opportunities that they were being presented with. So my role was acting as both Chief Operating Officer and Chief Transformation Officer. And I think that became vitally important to take the strategy around digital transformation and be able to embed it into business operations on a day-to-day basis. And I think that day-to-day basis is really one of those elements that make up culture really fundamentally in the end. You know, when I describe digital transformation effectively, it's essentially, and we've heard a lot of this already this morning, it's people transformation. It's really nothing more. And I think the technology is all important but fundamentally you need to either train or bring in new capabilities to be able to run and work the technology. But as in 90% of the cases, there are existing business models that need to be maintained. And really what you're doing is you transform as you're balancing the needs of that existing business as you fund the development and growth of a new business and a new business model with new capabilities. And a key part of that is how you integrate all of those strategic components and business components, business model components around one unifying culture and one unifying cultural experience. So I think, you know, the key tenants for what we've learned going through the process is digital transformation is at its very heart people transformation. It's about bringing in new capabilities and taking people with you in the journey. That in turn needs to be driven from that external environment. And I think some of the things, you know, when I think about digital transformation, that's 70% failure rate. I would almost guarantee that that's because culture has not been a central component of consideration as companies go through that digital transformation process. And I'll maybe end with an expression I've used before, which is, you know, and this one's from Dan Pink where he says that science has forgotten what business needs to learn. And I think, particularly in this environment where I think so much has been about technological growth and data and about new application performance and so on. You know, some of the more fundamentals around human beings has been left behind. And I don't think that's been invested in. And frankly, that's one of the, again, the central pillars that organizations really need to put first and foremost in order to be successful with their transformation. So science has forgotten what business needs to learn. If you look at particularly in tech, you know, most of the functional expertise comes from either product or sales. People that come up through those functions tend to end up. And frankly, you don't need to be a genius to work out. They're probably the least disposed to be very strong on the people component. So it's just something to consider. No, I love that. I mean, there is this book that everybody is receiving that today, the Transformation Playbook. And there is one article here that was part of, together with other 17 chief of strategy and chief of transformation. And we were just trying to, as a group, try to find out what were the four big traps for transformation. It's funny because we had a huge agreement that the main problem in transformation is around people, including culture, you know? And it comes to what you're saying. And my question, now I'm going to you, Perry, that is, so, I mean, we invest so much like to prepare the transformation to plan. I mean, you've been touching with so many organizations in your practice, but we are still neglecting, maybe, or we are still not paying attention in the people's side when you're planning and looking into transformation. What have seen organizations? Yeah, look, it's a great question. And I got to say, I very much resonate with everything which has been said. We are increasingly operating in a state of literally always-on transformation within organizations. And that places a very high toll on people. And I think what's very, very important is to bring, if you like, science. And that starts with proper planning and preparation up front. If you're going to unleash the power of people, if you're going to take advantage or establish and take advantage of a high-performance culture, you need to actually agree what those things are. You need to establish some ground rules. A high-performance culture, for example, embedded in a clear, strategic goal for the business, index to customers, index to purpose and what it means to employees. With a clear set of rules around what senior leaders are going to do, not in the easy times, but in the tough times to hold people to that. And what does it mean for the performance metrics? And that starts with senior leaders. Yes, it's about people and unleashing the power of people. And I think organizations are very much starting to realize that in transformation. But you can't just unleash them. You've got to start with senior leaders. And the brutal reality is if you look at the numbers of organizations that have gone through major transformation, after three years, typically only 40 to 60% of the senior leadership team are still there. So it starts with senior leaders. And what does it mean for them? Because it can be extremely disruptive. So you better off to have those discussions. Agree on what's been transformed, why, and what does it mean. And they need to opt in. And it's okay to opt out, but you need to have those discussions sooner rather than later. And then it's a cascade. How do you get the extended leadership team? Depending on the size of the organization, the top 70 to 150. And how do you equip them to be real agents of change? Champions, if you like, as discussed earlier. What does it mean for them? How do they support a culture which energizes people? Practically, what are the things they are going to do? And at the same time, how do they drive accountability? Because you have to have metrics. Lead indicator metrics as much as possible to make course corrections. And then move from it just sounding good, as I've described it, to what are the practical tools and techniques that you're gonna put in place, the minimal tools and techniques to train people up. And then know that there's no simple solution or framework. You have to make choices and that they are unique to each transformation. I think that's what we see. Okay, now you're exploring more of that. So I just want to get Anna. What I love about Anna is Anna today is not only a professor, but she managed one of the big schools at NYU. And, but she has a career as a practitioner. She has a corporate career in HR in other areas for a long time. So she has like this balance of what's going on and what people are discussing in the academy but bringing the reality to the floor. And Anna, I mean, Anna is another one that have one article at the HBR. Professor Tabrizzi is the number one but Anna was the number one article at HBR for a long time. And my question to you Anna is, there's all those things about people but one of the focus you're giving to many HR right now is that if you don't update the praxis, nothing will happen. There is a piece about people and how we empower people and you bring them to the conversation. But there is also like this conversation is, how is the predominant praxis in management of people that needs to be updated to make the transformation? You know, one of the downsides of the panels oftentimes is that all panelists individually talk to the facilitator but very rarely do we get the discussion. And before I answer your question, I really want to sort of be on the other side of the argument that Perry just made. And I am actually, I do not believe that the transformation will be achieved from the down, from the waterfall model of transformation and having done a lot of work in agility and how agile teams operate and how much agility and adaptability is a feature of successful organizations. We often see it doesn't come from the top. In fact, a lot of times it's the leadership that gets it last. And I think we're experiencing this reversal of hierarchies and we need to, especially if we put customer first because the customer is where the feedback is coming and people who are the front line operators are receiving that customer feedback. So I do not think that in a successful transformation it's going to be happening waterfall down with the senior leadership that needs to be transformed and then the rest of their organization trained. Oftentimes it's the other way around where we have a lot more agility, a lot more collaboration happening in the trenches of their organization and then the transformation of senior leadership is more of a challenge. And so there's one more thing that I want to say having reflected on this whole idea of failure and transformation. I also want to encourage us to kind of get out of the language that we are strapped into. We keep repeating the same vocabulary about transformation and change, et cetera, its strategy. I want to throw in a word learning to make it more democratic because transformation is about learning. And to your point about what changes in how we approach people. We have to understand a lot more about how people learn, period. And it's such a fundamental human trait to be learning. Now we are looking all the way from child psychology to neuroscience. I think the most important element of some, or aspect of science that we need to pay attention to is what do we actually know about learning? What do we know about unlearning and how do we accelerate learning? So organizations that try to figure out how to help their people learn faster and unlearn faster are gonna get there first. Okay, love it. And the other thing I want to say about failure since this is the theme of our panel is that, yeah, we kind of were very disappointed, right? We were like, what? Everyone talks about success and we're gonna talk about failure. But at the end of the day, I kind of decided that it's actually better because failure is now a feature, not a bug. Remember, there was a kind of a tagline, failure is not an option. Not failing is not an option these days. And so, connecting learning and creating the environment, and Tiffany said it so well, creating the environment where failure is just another feedback loop to us about how we can learn better and how can we learn from failure and how we can then, how can we scale that learning fast so that we don't repeat the same failure over and over again. And it's totally democratic. It comes from all levels of their organization. That's where I think the opportunity is for us to really understand how people adopt better to the accelerated rate and how we really become skilled at transforming ourselves. No, I love it. Just before I go to the next question, I just wanna come back and be fair with you, Barry, it's all. I wouldn't mind that, thank you. Let me be clear. I love Agile, all right? And I've been involved in a lot of highly successful Agile programs. I've also been involved in rescuing a lot of very bad Agile programs. Leadership matters profoundly. The model for leadership is changing. It's changing a lot. Servant leader, there's a lot of names for it. But you cannot, I believe, launch into a transformation without sufficient upfront planning and preparation. And I believe leaders have a great role in setting context. Now, a leader in a transformation that emphasizes agility, that emphasizes short, fast iterations, has to play a different model. She or he has to let go of certain authorities that they once had. And that's not always easy. That's all the more why you need to confront some things upfront. Because if you don't, you get part of the way into it and then suddenly you can hit a wall. What's more in a lot of organizations I'm in, you can't just let go of waterfall delivery. You need to have a mixture. And that is an evolving model in and of itself because many organizations are coming around to saying, we have delivery and it's actually a mixture of agile and waterfall and we're kind of bringing them together. Certainly many of the rituals of agile have great applicability in day-to-day management. So I'm not at all trying to say the world is about waterfall but I am saying that leaders matter profoundly in transformation because without them you can't unleash the talent and the capability of people who are actually essential for its success. Yeah, I love it. So let me go to another topic here because we come back to the culture and I think there is a lot of insights about how organizations can approach that from a top-down, from a more bottom-up approach. But one thing that is along the conversation of culture today is this piece of diversity. It's funny because most of the approach that I see when consultancies come to support companies is more like this traditional concept of culture of fit that at the end can become a simple kind of recipe for disaster because it cuts at the end diversity in the organization. And even if you bring diverse kind of backgrounds you force people to adapt to one reality that is how this organization works and how you need to operate here. And I would like to explore your perception of this that is how do you make sure you have a culture and how do you measure that and how do you control that? Because getting your point and my perception is if people capacity to learn is a constraint, the speed of transformation happen being measured by this and how you do that organization. I want to start with you Scott and Deline following. Sure, and I think from my perspective I think culture needs to be monitored as if it were biometrics. Particularly as you go through a transformation it's kind of like the pulse rate, the blood pressure of your organization. I think, and it's interesting here and in Perry's point I think the reality of our experience has been it's been a hybridization of both actually because I think fundamentally the point on leaders many, almost all or certainly more than 50, 60% of leaders didn't make the transformation journey. So leaders who are equipped to be successful in transformation is something you need to get right very much at the beginning and I think to Anna's point it's really we engaged over a thousand people in an organization at the time, only 7,000 people directly on what we call work streams, 50 or so work streams and that in itself is driving the new culture, the new behavior. So it is more agile, it's more decisive, it's more responsive and it's really about then using the combination to those things, the leadership to start to make that much more ubiquitous across the other six or 7,000 people as it was for us. I think on the specific point though, I would say that the diversity is vitally important but I think what's also really important as I've learned is don't try to be something you're not. I think organizations need to be true to themselves, it's part of what maintains the trust and builds that reputation for authenticity but we weren't trying to compete with Google and Facebook even though the skill sets that we required were the same, there was no point, it was just like we needed and we had a much more steady state evolving environment and we wouldn't have been able to attract those folks in the numbers or pay them the way that they would need to be paid anyway. So you need to be very clear about what you want your culture to change to or be modified to and throwing new people into puts that at risk unless you've thought through that first point. One of the experiences we had is that as you bring in those new leaders, whether individuals opt out or whether you opt them out, that's a hugely important decision to get right from a cultural perspective because that kind of behavioral cascade still occurs and if you don't get that right and you bring in 40, 50, 60% of your leaders are new even if it's over an 18 month period you will destroy what culture you had because you've got so many different influences and it decelerates all of your transformation experience. There is not like a contradiction here because we want people behaving in specific ways and at the end of the week when you have diversity you can have the advantage of having people with different behaviors that could be complementary and moving to you Aline and maybe you can come back Larry Scott is, I mean you're an organization that is passed into formation, transformation that is bringing people that have different mindsets and capabilities and diversity, few people talk about that but diversity brings clashes and increase the number of clashes because they have different world views on the table. Could you talk a little bit how is that working organization? How are you trying to make that work? So I want to say the word fit is my least favorite word and so many times hiring managers will come back and say the feedback they give after meeting candidates is it's not a right fit. That's unacceptable. We will not accept that type of feedback because one it doesn't tell us anything and it's kind of riddled with some unconscious bias. So we've been working very hard to kind of figure this out. I will say my other least favorite word is initiative. All the organizations are going through I will say the commitment to DEI and it's an initiative. It's not an initiative, it's a way of being and we're trying very hard to increase the diversity within our organization but also within our industry but diversity is more than just what you see. It's much deeper than that and so we have worked, we're in it. Like we're in the thick of it right now. I don't think we will ever be done but we're trying to transform our hiring practices because that's where we have to start and we have to do both. Getting at the hiring level but also what are we doing to retrain our leaders and the rest of the organization to be more open and to get out of what I call kind of this me too-ness not me too, hashtag me too but me too in we like people like to hire who they're comfortable with and it's sameness and we have to figure out how to break that cycle. So one of the strategies or the tactics that we're looking to use within our company is not to allow the hiring teams who have open positions to hire for themselves. Let's identify people in the organization who represent the brand, they represent everything that is important to our organization in terms of our values, our ethos and our vision and if you understand the roles and you understand what the business is and you understand what the clients are asking of us then it doesn't, your hiring teams shouldn't have to, they don't have to hire for themselves. So if you can have objective parties hiring on behalf of the teams, I believe that we will have greater diversity within the organization. We're in that right now, we're trying that. There's a lot of resistance to doing that as you can imagine but I like to go with, I'm kind of like sitting between both Perry and Anna like I get both of you and I think it's both. I think you have to, leadership is absolutely key but so much of it does come bottom up and we have a very strong grasp of it. Oh I agree, no it's both. It is absolutely both and so we are going with what I call the early adopters who understand it, who are maybe a little bit more progressive in their thinking and willing to try new approaches. That's amazing, so another point about diversity that is, and I will bring to you Anna right now, that is Caroline that was in one of the panels before I was telling and I think that's quite insightful. That actually was a part of a webinar that we recently did at Brightline that is what comes first, strategy and people and I mean, even getting what Rita said here that we need to be able to capture the early signals and you think about diversity, you can only capture the early signs if you have cognitive diversity to be able to capture them and coming back to what Caroline said is should we instead of thinking about first the strategy, we should think about what kind of talent I have in my organization that could be able to respond to the strategy to an unpredictable world instead of just try to figure out what is the talent that comes later and I mean, coming back to your expertise and looking to HRs and organizations, how are you seeing that organizations are moving this strategic use of people in diversity to make things more successful in the future and avoid failure? Again, back to the language, I think we're getting away from culture fit to culture add. How do we create portfolios where we're adding value, adding perspective, adding a set of expertise, skills, cognitive diversity is coming in big right now so we are actually learning from failure to bring back to the failure of what we've failed on in our diversity initiatives, Eileen, in the earliest stages of diversity exploration and so I think it's about culture add and absolutely 100% agree with you, it's about diversity for what? I think that very clear, and again, I don't like the word strategy, but what is the purpose? What purpose are we trying to achieve? And then based on that, try to see what kind of talent, what kinds of talent do we need to bring to solve for that particular or achieve that particular purpose? So everything is connected in that world. So it's culture add and purposefulness of our diversity orientation and clarity around how we get there through people. That's amazing. So coming back to you, Perry, we were talking a little bit last night about that and getting this point of purpose and we have heard purpose all the morning right here and we're talking about like how some organizations are bringing spirituality, not like in the religion perspective necessarily but to keep like this purpose even stronger than that. And I mean, as you have like so many connections and connecting, I mean, how are we seeing that unfolding in the organization? Is that something that is already like in place? I'm seeing more instances of it. This innate belief in the people within the organization and saying, how do we unleash that power? How do we use technology? How do we bring about really consistent role modeling from our leaders? How do we bring about ongoing capability development? And I think that's a really interesting one because if you think about where organizations are going, be it whether you're in a project function in a transformation or whether you're in running the business, more and more people are executing projects. And the question is, are you actively developing talent? Because if you're in a state of regularly dealing with transformation, are you equipping your people to deal with that, right? In the face of a social contract that's being rewritten, are you doing your utmost to develop the talent of your people? Which means are you introducing them to some of the best skills of agile, for example, some of the daily rituals around readouts? Are you doing your utmost to upskill people? Are you putting effective performance feedback systems in place, really effective performance feedback? Do you have effective coaching systems in place? Do you have really top-notch online learning in place? So I think those elements start to bring purpose to life, right? Because a purpose which is centered around your people says, well, what are we really doing to try to consistently develop our people? And coming back to you, Scott, because that's a conversation that came first between the two of you. And how, I mean, your practicing, your life, has that like being fooled as well, and how you bring that? So from a purpose perspective, I think having been fortunate to work for a company whose credo going back over a century is to benefit society through superior technology and products. It falls very naturally in terms of what the company's trying to do with respect and purpose. It's called now powering good as the tagline or changing the way the world works. And I think it's not an advertisement. It's not. We heard a lot about razors earlier. I'm not sure how razor blades could make the world a better place, but a lot of the advertising around that would lead you to believe that to be the case. So I think coming back to authenticity of the notion, what you are actually able to change and what you're trying to change and what you measure as a company. And I think the company that I've been part of is very keen to measure its environmental sustainability goals, puts executives on the improvement of the company. Compensation is put against that. So there's much stronger authenticity and connection to that. And as a result, the entire workforce feels very connected to that powering good notion and changing the way the world works. So I think the idea is really about, we heard some other words today from a leadership standpoint, being an authentic leader and developing trust around that purpose and really being seen to role model it. It's critically important. But I totally agree with, and I think this point has been made in multiple times, organizations really need to engage in the empowerment of that workforce, that development process to make individuals better at enabling that purpose that the organization has set for themselves. So going to the end of the panel right now, and I'll keep it with you when we move to the others, is look to this. I mean, my perception is, if you don't make people to transform and to learn and to connect with a purpose, nothing will happen. It's like the center of the piece. It's like the constraint of the process and the constraint of the transformation. So what would be a simple practical device? I know it's complex when you talk about people. We are talking about the unexpected. But what would be the simple practical device you would give to this group here that came here today to better manage organizational culture so abstract top in their transformations? I think, certainly one piece of personal advice I could offer is, if you're doing enterprise transformation in all its complexity and really shooting for something ambitious, it will be the hardest thing you ever do in your professional career. So don't underestimate the massive amount of personal energy that you need to bring to that over multi, multi years. And I think I would say, in summary then, be sure that you know what you're letting yourself in for, because people will continue to look to you for years in role modeling the leadership that is required to drive a successful transformation. That would be my advice. Alayne. Well, I want to go into a little different direction. I'm feeling a little uncomfortable with the conversation, because I feel like we're talking about people and they're like a commodity. And I feel like we're talking about an object. And I think that's part of what happens a lot in organizations. And we don't engage with the employees within the organizations to be a part of whatever's going on within your companies. They have to be a part of it. They all have to have a seat at the table. Because of the diverse spirit of what goes on within organizations, the more we can engage our employees, the better. I love it. OK, thank you. Barry, any recommendation to this team here? So I'm very tempted to talk about the importance of lead indicator metrics, but I won't, because you're right. You're so very, very right. My piece of advice would be to not, for a single moment, underestimate the importance of communication, authentic, effective communication, and what it's going to take to achieve that. And really visit very, very strongly on it. And have the metrics in place for that, but more so the reference groups and so forth. That's incredibly important. Anna, join the panel. Yeah, I'm with Eileen here about we can't change or transform people. They have to transform themselves. We should create conditions for that. And probably one of the most important things is to figure out what failure means to their organization. Because to me, it's the litmus test of really sustainability of culture. The culture knows what failure is, creates that it's a feedback, it's a learning. Make it frequent, make it timely, and learn from it, and celebrate successes, but also embrace opportunities to try and experiment. If that doesn't happen, I don't think any transformation is going to be successful. Wonderful. Now, I love your comment, Eileen, and just to finish. And I think this panel, I think we are still struggling as a world to see how people could represent the potential to all the possibilities that we have. People are possibility. We are just not considering that, complimenting you. I would ask you a round of applause to this amazing group here. Thank you so much for coming here. Thank you.