A Trick to Building Inclusion: Lessons from the Playground

/in , , , , /by

On the playground at our daughter’s elementary school, there is something called the Buddy Bench. According to Annie, it’s where you can go and sit if you don’t have any friends to play with.

Then, if you see someone sitting there, alone on the Buddy Bench, your job is to go over and invite them to play with you.

My first reaction to the thought of the Buddy Bench was that it sounded a bit like the No Friends Bench, and that the act of sitting there was sad and lonely, and that by walking over and inviting someone to play was an act of generosity and kindness. And that the whole scene of walking over and sitting there would be like social abandonment. If you did have the courage to walk over, in front of the world to see, and take their hand, and invite them to play with you, the two of you would be quietly ostracized playing in a corner of the playground. At least that’s the way it played out in my mind. Maybe I’ve watched too many come-from-behind underdog Disney movies.

But the way our daughter describes it so matter-of-factly, there’s nothing odd or strange or uncomfortable about either going to the bench to sit, or walking over and inviting someone sitting there to play with you. The way she describes it, by sitting on the Buddy Bench, it’s almost as if you are announcing that you are available to play. It seems the gesture of sitting there is more of an invitation. It’s like raising your hand and saying “Hey, I’m free for something new. Anyone?”

There doesn’t seem to be any stigma associated with it. It’s all very straight-forward. If you’re not sure what to do, sit on the Buddy Bench and pretty soon someone will come over and invite you to play. Annie says people don’t sit on the Buddy Bench for very long. Almost immediately kids get scooped off the Buddy Bench by some kid or a group of kids, and run off immersed in an activity.

To me, this represents the epitome of environments of inclusion. An environment in which no one is permitted to be a pariah. The school has created a mechanism in which if you feel lonely or lost, or simply unsure of what to do next, you make a gesture. That gesture of sitting on the bench says to the entire community you are feeling left out or simply disengaged, and the whole community sees this visual cue and reacts immediately.

It’s also a culture in which a call for help has no stigma associated with it. In fact, the inverse is true. Regular rotation through the Buddy Bench is perfectly normal and healthy since that kid is going to get picked up by a new group and have new experiences.

But there are unwritten social rules that it is unacceptable for anyone to remain on the Buddy Bench. I imagine that the presence of someone lingering on the Buddy Bench would be an unconscious cue that the community lacks leadership, or courage. The social contract would be broken if someone were left there hanging. Annie says it never happens.

If you’re concerned about a lack of engagement, or professional isolation in your work environment, I encourage you to be proactive about it. Start with the assumption that they are at your company for a reason, that they deserve to be there. Then recognize the cues: lack of contribution at meetings, unanswered emails, missed deadlines, lack of initiative, half-ass work. Then pick up the phone, or walk over to their cube and invite them. Invite them for coffee. Invite their opinion. Invite them to contribute to your most valued project.

Invite them to play.

Check out our new series Small Acts of Leadership to pick up small habits you can practice every single day.

    ____________________________________________________

I founded Mindscaling, a company building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

How the Happiest People Think and Act

/in , , , , /by

The happiest parts of vacations are planning them. The most joyous time is before we even pack our bags. And only those who were able to really, truly check out and relax reported a performance and happiness boost after returning to work.

We aren’t very good at remembering how we felt in the past. We consistently remember the highlights, when in fact the majority of the actual time spent was more mundane. We have the experiencing self in real time who has opinions and emotions, and we have a remembering self who recollects events and provides us with advice about the quality of that experience and how to make future choices.

Researchers have consistently demonstrated that we are poor predictors of what will make us happy in the future. The world is full of miserable lottery winners. We still think that, if only we have the house, the car, the spouse, the job, the vacation, we will be so happy. And yet consistently many of these dreams fail to deliver joy upon arrival, or at least to deliver sustainable joy. One reason is our projection bias – we think the way we feel now is the way we will feel in the future. After a big dinner we think we won’t enjoy breakfast because we’re full. Which explains why we buy impulsively at the grocery store when we are hungry, and the most sensible shopping is done after a meal.

Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues conducted a study in which the researchers asked participants to categorize their days into fifteen-minute increments and value them in real time on the basis of how they felt at those moments. They found that we really only spend less than 30% of our day engaged in activities we characterize as either enjoyable or meaningful. And our most enjoyable or meaningful moments are almost always in the company of others and in pursuit of a purpose greater than ourselves. These are times at lunches, or dinner parties, or playing with friends and loved ones. In the study, the activity of volunteering or working with loved ones in the service of others was evaluated as peak happiness events.

Harvard has completed a study observing the lives of 268 men from 1938 until now. From war to marriage to career triumphs, personal tragedies, parenting, habits and daily behaviors, the Grant Foundation has followed these men as they live (and sometimes die) for the last 80 years. In the book Triumphs of Experience, George Valient breaks down what they have learned are characteristics of a long, healthy and joyful life.

It doesn’t have anything to do with religion, political or sexual orientation. A happy childhood is helpful, but not necessary, for a thriving adult life. The habits you establish before 50 become predictive of mental and physical stability decades later. Learning and change is a lifelong pursuit, and not restricted to childhood and adolescence. And the inevitability of a mid-life crisis is a myth popularized in the 70s.

But according to the study, the two strongest behavioral contributors of a joyful and successful life are the ability to create quality relationships with those around us, and establishing “mature defenses.” According to George Valliant “altruism (doing as one would be done by), anticipation (keeping future pain in awareness), humor (managing not to take oneself too seriously), sublimation (finding gratifying alternatives), and suppression (keeping a stiff upper lip) are the very stuff of which positive mental health is made.”

Go forth in 2015 with happiness, success and joy.

When We Feel Pressure to Be Fake

/in , , , , /by

“Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you.”
– Brené Brown

When my Mom was first diagnosed with cancer, her first impulse was that she didn’t want to tell anyone. She thought maybe people would see her as vulnerable, frail or dying. I remember thinking That’s nuts!

But it wasn’t crazy. It’s a common first reaction. And she went on to have a very open and successful battle with lymphoma.

It’s quite common for people to conceal parts of their identity for fear of being stigmatized. At work people often hide their religion, political values, sexual orientation, health conditions, maybe their cross-dressing preferences. People even conceal quite benign things like parental obligations to fetch a sick child from school, or take them to a dentist appointment. All out of fear of being branded as not professional, or not dedicated, or most importantly not like everyone else at work.

It’s an effort to get along, to be part of the group, to fit in.

The fear is that if our true identities are known, we’ll be stigmatized, possibly ostracized from people at work. Understandably no one wants to feel rejected. The interesting thing about this expectation is that it’s completely false. In this fascinating study from Yale, researchers discovered that overwhelmingly people believed and expected that by concealing parts of their identity that were unique or counterculture, they would feel a higher sense of belonging to the group, and in turn the group would be more welcoming and more inclusive to others looking and acting like everyone else.

It turns out the opposite is true. When we conceal parts of our identity that are core truths about what we believe and who we are, we start to retract from homogeneous groups. And by hiding personal truths, and socially withdrawing from a group, people around you sense it and begin to withdraw from you as well. It’s a reinforcing cycle.

Not only that, when we start to conceal personal identity traits it makes it harder to honestly and genuinely connect with others. The result is we lose a sense of belonging, which is at the very core of this buzzword engagement.

If we to feel like we belong to where we work, we care more about the work we do. To bring out the best in people, we need a culture that not only allows, but actively encourages expression of self. And the very best bosses and leaders understand this by creating an environment of inclusiveness and acceptance.

Money can buy happiness… If you give it away

/in , , /by

Kid-sharing-his-umbrella-with-a-deer

Imagine that every morning someone gives you an envelope with either $5 or $20. You never know which. And each day you are asked to either spend it on a treat for yourself, or spend it on a gift for someone else. Then that same person calls you at 5pm to ask how your day went. How do you feel?

Turns out that the answer to the question, “Can money buy you happiness?” is Yes. The kicker is that the greatest happiness comes from spending it on someone else. And as it turns out, how you spend the money is much more important than how much money it is.

Michael Norton and his colleagues Elizabeth Dunn and Lara Aknin researched whether money can really buy happiness. The hypothesis was that after basic needs of shelter, food, education, and living standards are met, extra income has little impact on personal happiness, except when we spend it on acts of generosity.

The reason for the study was based on the paradox that although people spend so much of their time and effort trying to make more and more money, having all that money does not seem to make them as happy. Could it be that they were not spending money the right way? The idea was if people were encouraged to spend money differently, perhaps we might be able to generate a greater sense of joy within ourselves and others.

An interesting part of the study revealed that this goes directly against our own instincts. When asked, 65% of those surveyed stated that spending money on themselves would make them the happiest. Additionally, over 85% believed that receiving $20 to spend would have a greater happiness advantage than $5. Wrong again. Turns out that the amount we spend on others doesn’t make than much of happiness difference. The important part is the act of generosity, not the amount we spend.

The same is true at our work. Lending resources across divisions and product lines increases collaboration, unity and sense of shared purpose. Generosity of time, energy, and commitment builds our own sense of belonging and joy. Remember, generosity only makes you richer.

Have a goal? You can double your odds of success.

/in , , , , /by

Make_a_PromiseA colleague called me yesterday and said, “I want to talk about commitment.” We had just finished brainstorming an idea over a few days and we both agreed we had something good, quite good, excellent actually. She wanted to have that conversation about accountability, about follow through. Which got me thinking about how to improve the odds of completing anything we set our minds to.

A group of researchers in California did an interesting study in which they randomly assigned people to five different groups. All five groups had to think about and prioritize goals they wanted to accomplish over the next four weeks.

  • All Groups had to think about their goals
  • Group 2 through 5 had to write them down
  • Group 3 had to also write specific action items
  • Group 4 had to also share those action items with someone
  • Group 5 had to also share those action items and progress regularly

Group 1 had a 43% completion rate on the goals they thought about, which is a little better than the 29% who actually complete marathon training schedules and show up at the starting line. But those in Group 5 who had to not only write down their goals, but be specific, and share their progress regularly had a 76% completion rate.

It’s why every support group imaginable exists – from cooking classes to exercise bootcamps to beekeeping clubs. When we build a cohort of supportive peers and hold ourselves accountable to them on a regular basis, success happens.

One of the most simple and effective accountability tools I know goes like:

  1. Write down up to 20 things you want to improve on. It can be anything from making people laugh to doing more pushups to making dinner for your kids. Anything.
  2. Next turn those goals into simple yes/no questions such as, Did you make someone smile today? You can also frame the questions to require a number answer, such as “How many miles did you run today?” No questions requiring elaborate answers. Keep it simple.
  3. Now give those questions to someone who will call you up every day, or twice a week and ask you your own questions.

When you know you have to testify to someone you care about on the goals that you want to accomplish, you will show up, you will do the work, make the difference, and answer that call every day prepared to give answers you believe in.

Specificity + Accountability + Consistency = Results.

Why Do You Hide From Your Boss?

/in , , , /by

HidingatworkAccording to researcher Robert Hogan, 75% of working adults today say the most stressful, most dreaded interactions they have at work is with their immediate boss.

Stress-inducing bosses have even been linked to increases in heart desease related illnesses. Studies show that the correlation of bad bosses and heart trauma seem to occur together, just like death and taxes.

As a result these same professionals avoid dealing with their boss by hiding, often in plain sight. Hiding in their email, hiding in meetings, phone calls, commutes, and projects that “demand” their attention.

The quest toward greater transparency has spawned open workspaces, and naked communication practices which approach surveillance levels. Indeed, the 7th Principle of the Toyota Way is “use visual control so no problems are hidden.” All in the pursuit of “visibility.” Many bosses benignly believe that regular oversight will elevate performance, drive healthy competition, and allow them to tweak processes by watching workers from a higher vantage point. As if by studying worker activity they could gently guide the team activity in the right direction of higher efficiency, greater collaboration and productivity.

Yet Harvard Professor Ethan Bernstein discovered almost the opposite. In a series of studies he found that the greater the oversight, the lower the productivity and worker moral. He dubbed this phenomenon The Transparency Paradox. What he discovered is that even modest levels of privacy for small groups of workers significantly increased productivity and engagement in their work.

Organizational transparency can, of course, have very positive effects. It can allow increased awareness into the capabilities of other teams, and allow team members to more easily build cross-functional collaboration. That’s clearly a good thing. Transparency in surfacing product or service issues can certainly more quickly isolate problems for faster correction. Transparency can also help ensure that localized problems don’t linger. As Justice Louis Brandeis famously said “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

However in Professor Bernstein’s studies he found that transparency when applied as constant worker observation has a negative effect. Constant observation by bosses was not only a performance distraction, but also severely curtailed process experimentation or procedure deviance. In other words, when you are constantly monitored and scrutinized in your every action, you are far less likely to try something new, experiment, and come up with a new way of working.

So answer to “Why do you hide from your boss?” is you know that by building autonomy into your work life you will perform better, innovate faster, and be happier in your work.

And just for fun…

Dreaded Conversations…And Avoiding Being One Yourself

/in , , , , , /by

two-women-talking_2Slydial is the app that lets you go straight to voicemail, safe from the possibility that someone might actually answer your call.

One reason Slydial exists is because of the energy vampires in the world. Those people you dread talking to because they leave you depleted, bummed out, frustrated, or annoyed with every conversation. However hopeful you remain, they will figure out how to suck the energy from the conversation. Sure, maybe you use Slydial because you just don’t have the time for a conversation and texting would get lost in translation. But I don’t think that’s the biggest reason it’s so popular.

One of the greatest predictors of your effectiveness, happiness, and success in your work is your capacity to be an energizer, instead of an energy vampire. According to Rob Cross at the University of Virginia, your ability to create energy in the workplace, and with your colleagues around you, is more powerful a predictor of your success over other criteria, including your function, title, department, expertise, seniority, knowledge, intelligence… These are all descriptors. Creating energy is a behavior, and it can be learned.

Think about that for a second, and then ask yourself, “When people leave an interaction with me, do they leave feeling more or less energized?”

Here are a few ways you can make sure you create and magnify energy, instead of draining those around you:

Energizers are present
Creating energy does not require you be an extrovert. It does not mean you need to jump up and down, or stand on a chair and cheer, or high-five your colleagues. It simply means you possess the ability to see opportunities as others describe them, and reiterate those ideas back in a way that conveys you truly understood them.

Energizers open possibilities
Energizers possess the ability to ask provocative questions that open up possibilities and encourage pursuit of action. It means being present and engaged in each conversation. It means building contagious enthusiasm in a constructive way, with emotional fluency. Opening possibilities is about giving those around you the creative latitude to explore ideas that perhaps fall outside of usual organizational boundaries.

Energizers follow through
When we get enthusiastic about something it can be infectious. But remember the difference between enthusiasm and action. There’s nothing more de-energizing than walking away from a meeting feeling fired-up, work diligently on a shared vision, then only to return and find your colleague hasn’t done anything. Energizers follow through on their promises, and consistently demonstrate do-ability of a project by actively contributing.

Energizers add value instead of topping others
I’m sure you have been in a meeting before in which an idea is tossed around. And each person in turn, is trying to outdo the others to look smarter. This is not adding value, this is called topping someone else. This behavior is when you try to sound smarter and more important than someone else and begin to compete, instead of contributing to the conversation. So when someone says, “We went to New York for our vacation.” And then you say, “Oh, we went to Spain.” That’s not building value, that’s trying to top someone else’s contribution.

Energizers use supportive questions
A supportive assertion is when you say, “That’s great!” or “So cool. Love it!” But a supportive question encourages and deepens the conversation. So the next time someone mentions they went to New York for a vacation trying asking, “Wow, that sounds wonderful. What was the most exciting part of the trip for your family?”

You Don’t Have to Be Lonely at Work

/in , , , /by

On a scale of 1 to 10, answer these questions about yourself at work:

* “I feel out of tune with my co-workers”
* “I lack companionship at my work”
* “There is no one I can turn to in this organization”
* “I feel left out”
* “I don’t feel like I can talk honestly with anyone in this company”

These are some of the questions researchers asked of 786 professionals and their bosses, to help determine both their sense of loneliness in the organizational culture, and then correlate that result with their current job performance.

Recent studies reflect that a little over half of us, at one time or another, experience periods of intense loneliness in our professional lives. But loneliness is not depression or shyness or poor social skills, and it certainly isn’t introversion. It’s more a feeling of estrangement, of alienation – a sense of not belonging to a place, or a culture. And the implications of having lonely people at work are big. Our sense of belonging on a team has a direct impact on our commitment to task, sense of role clarity, and collaborative effectiveness.

The other big implication of feeling lonely at work is that we increase our level of surface acting or “covering.” That is, we intentionally conceal parts of our authentic identity. What happens when we feel lonely at work is we start to pretend to be someone else. And when we pretend to be someone other than who we are, we start to emotionally withdraw.

Not only that, loneliness is linked to personal health. Feeling socially isolated has a direct link to increased blood pressure and increased risk of heart disease. Loneliness also negatively affects sleep quality, which affects cognition, which… well, affects everything.

Empathetic Interventions:
Persistent loneliness often leads to an expectation of negative interactions and an increase in hostility. If we feel socially isolated at work, we begin to expect that isolation will persist. In other words, loneliness begets loneliness. You have to break the cycle. Try this: the next time you feel a lonely emotion (“No one understands me.” or “I don’t belong here.”), recognize the emotion as simply that – an emotional response to a circumstance, or an individual. And recognize that we can choose other responses.

And even if you can’t conjure a charitable thought, try instead to see the world from their lens, their point of view. When we work on our empathy, we gain greater emotional fluency, which in turn creates connection.

If you are a boss, understand that loneliness in the workplace isn’t a private and personal issue, this is an organizational culture issue. If people around you are emotionally withdrawing, it’s not their problem, it’s your problem, and it’s your company’s problem.

The 5:1 Rule:
Aside from direct and personal intervention, ensure that you are using a 5:1 rule. That is, create a team interaction dynamic that builds a 5 to 1 ratio in terms of positive to negative communication. And by positive I don’t simply mean saying “That’s great!” Research tells us that supportive questions are even more powerful than supportive assertions. So the next time someone on the team has an idea you feel is valuable, ask a deepening question like “How did you arrive at that?” or “Who do you think we should talk with next to make this a reality?”

Check out our new micro-learning series Small Acts of Leadership to begin making cultural shifts one small act at a time. Message me if you’re interested and we’ll send you a preview. Enjoy!

    ____________________________________________________

SmallActs-3DShawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, (Routledge) just released. You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.

Twitter: @gshunter
Say hello: email@gshunter.com
Web: www.shawnhunter.com

The High Cost of Hiding Yourself

/in , , , /by

Recently I was asked to be a guest speaker at an event designed for executives of a big technology company. I wore a black suit. The very next day I spoke at a marketing group event of a Silicon Valley gaming company. Unsure of what to wear I asked, and they said, “jeans and chucks.” And then, like an idiot I asked, “What are chucks?”

This is a pretty benign example of what the The Deloitte Leadership Center for Inclusion calls “appearance covering.” We do it all the time when we accept a dinner invitation or go to the beach. We try to wear the right thing to fit in, not stand out, or maybe just not stand out too much. We practice this kind of social covering so much so that in their study 82% of workers stated that covering for appearance was “somewhat” to “extremely” important for professional advancement.

Dressing to fit in can make us often feel even more committed to the team and the mission. But we also often “cover” other aspects of our authentic identities. We hide not only our political opinions, but also truths that deeply define us, such as our cultural histories, sexual orientations, socio-economic backgrounds, or even our age and any disabilities we might have. Comments from those who participated in the study include:

  • Covering family obligations: “I was coached to not mention family commitments (including daycare pickup, for which I leave half an hour early, but check in remotely at night) in conversations with executive management, because the individual frowns on flexible work arrangements.”
  • Covering socio-economic background: “I didn’t always volunteer the information that I grew up very poor and that I was the first to go to college. It seemed like I wouldn’t be accepted because I always assumed everyone I worked with grew up middle or upper class.”
  • Covering ethnicity:“I don’t want people to define me as an Asian, so I’ve been hesitant to participate in activities geared toward the Asian community.”
  • Covering physical health: “I don’t associate with cancer groups, because I don’t want to draw attention to my medical status, disability, or flexible arrangements. People tend to look at me like I’m dying when they find out I have cancer…”

However, as their study uncovered (pun intended), when we feel like we can be more authentically ourselves, we care more about our work, and hold stronger commitment to our company. When we feel that we cannot express ourselves authentically in identity, we feel inhibited in our ability to give our commitment fully to our work efforts.

As one respondent put it, “I understand that my opportunities to advance at my current company are restricted by the fact that I do not fit the ‘mold’ of their executive leadership. If I had the opportunity to do the kind of work I do at another firm with similar compensation, but could be more authentic without limiting my job security or chances for advancement, I’d switch in a heartbeat.”

Remember that partitioning our lives and identities is a trap. When we segment and partition our lives into work life, home life, sporting life, community-service life, etc., we deny a truth that often our greatest strength comes from integrating all the different and diverse network interactions, and ideas into a unified and integrated whole. After all, the etymology of Integrity is from the Latin integer, meaning wholeness, or the unit of one.

“A single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. When we stereotype others, we reduce them. We imprison them in our own small view, a dark and tiny place with no light and no room for growth.”

novelist Chimamanda Adichie

Building cultures of leadership, trust and innovation starts one small act at a time. Try our course Small Acts of Leadership to move the needle a little in your workplace.

    ____________________________________________________

Our company Mindscaling, is busy building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk. Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Give the Gift of Time

/in , , , , /by

If only HP knew what HP knows, we’d be three times more productive.
—Lew Platt, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard

Everyone is so busy these days, overwhelmed by complexity and uncertainty, that it’s hard to know what to do or who to talk to in order to accomplish daring, and unexpectedly awesome initiatives. And so we create structure, process and teams to solve specific tasks or projects. But team composition, proximity, and facilitation matter a great deal in terms of how productive they eventually become.

London Business School conducted an interesting study in which they asked 1,543 people to answer a bunch of questions about the composition and behavior of the teams they worked on. It turns out that some of the very characteristics that define modern professional teams, are the same characteristics that undermine their success. These trending characteristics include:

Bigger teams: Teams are swelling in size to be (or appear to be) more inclusive, gain greater stakeholder buy-in and leverage more expertise. Teams of 20 people or more is increasingly common, and technology is enabling a good part of swelling headcount. But research from Bob Sutton on scaling excellence demonstrates that honest and engaged collaboration decreases after team size exceeds about 8 people.

Diverse teams: Again, technology enabled, globally dispersed diverse teams are growing rapidly. And with good reason since the ability to leverage expertise throughout the globe is increasingly a powerful component of competitive advantage. But deeply engaged, open collaboration starts with trust. And trust starts with the personal understanding that comes from cultural and emotional fluency. We might get technically proficient collaboration across cultural boundaries, but richer collaboration requires the bedrock of trust. I once met a guy named Marcus who was based in Germany and ran an IT services group, which was based in Silicon Valley. Several times a year Marcus would fly to California for no other reason than to spend time with his team, chatting, having meals, talking about work, but also interacting on a human and personal level. He calls these trips “The Flying Handshake.”

Educated teams: According to the study, teams are increasingly comprised of people with higher and higher education levels. And it turns out, the higher the education among the team members, the more likely the team may devolve into petty arguments. One key to overcoming this obstacle is to require teams to have not only task goals, but also relationship-oriented goals.

The study cites some constructive interventions to help boost the effectiveness and ingenuity of teams, as well as to eradicate “fault lines” within teams, but one leadership trait in particular has a powerful effect in scaling excellence: giving the gift of time.

Company cultures in which leaders regularly give their time to listen to emerging problems, and advise team members of who they might talk to within the company to accelerate solutions is a defining characteristic of successful cultures. Specifically, the study cites Nokia’s cultural tendency for leaders to sit with individual team members and point them in the direction of people throughout the organization which they believe will accelerate results and strengthen inter-departmental collaboration.