In The News - Feb 2, 2024
How Managers React to Events that Damage the Culture
NOTE: In The News will be a regular Friday post where I select real events that took place and discuss the challenges that they cause managers. The goal is not to report the news or rehash the standard takes.
Normally this would only be for paid subscribers, but I am sending this one to everyone as a sample of what you can expect.
We are all familiar with stories of companies treating workers poorly that go viral. The poor treatment isn’t new, the ability to get the story viral is a more recent phenomenon. Many times, we see these stories as something that will hurt the company with customers. What we don’t do is think about how individual managers and the employees are impacted.
If you aren’t familiar with the most recent story of Kyte Baby, you can read about it here - Why did the Kyte Baby drama touch a nerve? (morningbrew.com). This is one of those instances where the company messed up (with the initial decision and the initial public response to the decision). When you read it, you understand why customers got mad and why employees might be mad or confused. The challenge for managers is in reacting in such a way that it doesn’t impact the engagement of the team.
Managers must build their own team culture – whether it conforms to the org culture is the choice. Managers can’t control the org culture or what happens on other teams, but managers have a huge impact on the culture in their team. Obviously, it shouldn’t be in conflict with the corporate culture, but it doesn’t have to be exactly as the org has prescribed.
Key Point: Your org and your team will have a culture. If you don’t spend time defining and building it, one will organically pop up and you may not like it. Better to try and create and grow a culture than succumb to one that forms on its own.
The biggest challenge for the manager comes in the fallout. Employees generally fall into 1 of 3 camps:
Horrified – these are the people who can’t believe that someone is so greedy (or add your own negative adjective) and gets angry. Work becomes an (even more) stressful place.
Confused – these are the people who start to question the culture. They start to wonder if the great words on the culture poster are fake. They become disillusioned and risk becoming disengaged.
Indifferent – these are the negative people who probably didn’t buy the culture talk anyways and now see this as proof that it was all garbage.
Each of those three personas present a unique challenge. Fortunately, the things that manager needs to do can help keep all 3 personas engaged.
What is a manager to do?
The main thing the manager must do is acknowledge the situation and create an environment where people can express their feelings. Obviously, this type of psychologically safe environment must be in place before the event or it will have limited impact. Let people share and feel.
As a manager, you can have and share feelings as well, but avoid the temptation to take sides. Don’t defend management and don’t attack management. Let management handle that and simply speak for yourself and let your team speak for themselves.
While doing that, reinforce the team culture that you’ve built. Explain that you respect and appreciate everyone on the team. Stress that you can’t control what the CEO does, but you can control what you do. Explain that as long as you have control, your culture will stay in place. Remember, individuals build loyalty and relationships with the manager they interact with most often, not with the management team. They need to know that culture is still there and won’t be impacted.
Last, share the concerns of the team and your concerns with your manager. The simple fact is that executives are probably on damage control with customers, it is up to you and your manager to make sure they see the impact and act appropriately towards the individual contributors. As a bonus, this will show your team that you are their voice when they aren’t in the room.
If you do this – essentially acknowledge but stay the course – your team can get past this. They can even thrive because it can bring everyone together.