Manager About Culture Change

Manager: “Hi I’m Christen Schweitzer. I’m the manager of application development here at Esse Health. I work closely with peers and with other departments with my team.

Everyone’s Involved: I do like that everyone is included in the culture change process because it gives us all the common language and I like that we can prompt each other for gaps if we start to go along a tool and somebody says, “Oh will you do it this way? or “You forgot that piece.” or “That was perfect!” And we can support each other. And there’s no secrets at all. It’s all out there. There’s nobody that’s the keeper of the knowledge, or you don’t have to get to the next level. Everybody’s included. It’s more equal that way.

Improved Relationships: The process improved the relationship with my colleagues in a very very big way; in a very unexpected way. A peer of mine and I did not get along well, and it was kind of under the covers and it was kind of not out in the open but when we sat down and actually went through the process and got it out we’ve come out of it as very very strong team members and this person is probably the person I trust the most as a peer, a huge team member, and we just get each other in ways that we didn’t before. I mean it was beyond anything I could have imagined.

This process has an improved my relationship with Erin (CIO) not as much because she already kind of did a lot of the things and showed a lot of trustworthy aspects but having the language and being able to bounce ideas off of her, and know that she is totally on board, gives a level of trustworthiness and honesty that wasn’t there before. It was very good but it brought it from like a nine to a ten, you know.

Overall improvements: The improvements I’ve seen overall is that everybody gets along a lot better. I was just thinking of when we started and I did a blueprint one thing that I wanted was I wanted IT and our team our HEM team to work well together, and I was thinking of that today, because everybody I passed in the hall said “Hi!” That was in my vision. That wasn’t anything that I worked on. I didn’t do any goals. It just naturally occurred where people say “Hi” to each other in the halls, and it’s a totally different environment than it was before.

Personal Benefits: This has changed my home life a lot. I love that the model works in every instance where there’s a team or a mentor or a teaching relationship. So, I’m a manager at work. I’m a parent at home. And it’s been incredible, especially for my kids. I already knew a little bit about the philosophy before LifeWorks came on board at work, and it was astonishing because I thought, “Oh my gosh! I know how well this worked with my kids even the little bits that I can do with it.” So to have a clear model, and some checklists, and some coaching, has improved my entire life – everything!

Story 1: I have lots of stories of using LifeWork tools. The biggest one at work was the colleague and I, a peer and I were not getting along well. We sat down and we were mentored through using the dialogue tool. And we came in at odds, totally blaming each other, throwing each other under the bus, not trusting each other, yet we went in and we came out and there was an understanding. I was probably so upset that I was almost in tears from anger and not being recognized, and I went out feeling that this person completely heard me and I had a brand new view of what they wanted, that I just didn’t even recognize before. And out of that one dialogue tool, one session, just one session where we were both all-in and willing, they made some changes so I felt heard, and I made some changes, and my team made some changes, so they felt heard, and it was it felt almost overnight, but there was such an interest in helping the other person that hadn’t been there before, and an understanding. It was, I almost describe it as magic sometimes when I think about it. So, that was one story.

Story 2: The second story is that we were not getting – I was not getting along well with another department. My heart was not in the right place and there was a lot of blame and putting down and I used one of the principles in LifeWorks, and got some people rallied up and we did a secret Santa for them because they did such they did do they do do wonderful work and just because my mindset isn’t right doesn’t mean they don’t deserve it. So we did a secret Santa and then the next year they gave us a Secret Santa – totally totally surprised. I mean we were all sitting there afterwards thinking if you had told us that we would be exchanging this kind of recognition and appreciation for each other, we would have bet against you, we could have never imagined it. It’s never perfect, nothing’s ever perfect, but there’s a lot more hope that things can always get better, and that it’s a lot more comfortable to think the best of other people and work toward them, than to just write them off as, “Oh they’re just so and so,” Or, “They’re just such and such.” It’s a lot more inspiring to be surrounded by a culture where we’re trying to figure out what they really want, and what we’re not giving, and what we need to do. As part of the Secret Santa, we gave them a list of affirmations and things that we appreciated about them, and later on they told us that they had framed it and put it up and told their department about it. I didn’t know that until like a year later so it was really powerful.

Advice to other companies: What would you tell other companies? I would tell them that just try it. I think that people who write books; if you were, if you buy a book that’s ten bucks, if you get one idea out of it; one thing – it’s worth the book because these people, you know the authors have spent years possibly researching this and refining it and getting feedback. And to just get one thing – it’s a lot easier to read a book and get one thing than to do years of research. So the LifeWorks model has everything. I mean if you’ve read anything about self development or leadership or coaching or mentoring, it’s packed full, and you could get a million things out of it. But when you jump, in you can get at least one thing that will switch, and make a difference that you never imagined. So, it’s definitely worth trying and going all in and just saying, “Alright, I’m going to try it.” The worst that can happen is I get nothing. The medium, what I’m probably going to get, is at least one thing, and the best that could happen is better than, beyond my wildest dreams.

Advice to the rest of Esse: What I would like other people at Esse to know is that I would love for you to try this. I would love to know more about what you want from me. I would love to have more honest conversations. I think there’s so many incredible people that work at Esse, and as good as things are, they could be a lot better. It could be so much more fun and enjoyable to get things done when you totally trust people. And I do, but it’d be a dream come true to have everyone with the same culture, and the same language.

The Unexpected: What surprised me about this culture process was how it spoke to needs that I didn’t even know were there: how much we want to be inspired and heard, and I all the time still today, I go to sessions where I learn information, then get to practice it, and I think, “I’m at work doing this. They are kind of paying me to do this. And this is such amazing and life-changing information.” I just feel grateful constantly about it. What surprised me the most is that it was easy to implement. It’s one thing to say, “Oh we believe in being trustworthy” and “We believe in being excellent.” It’s another thing to get very specific ways to make things better, and that surprised me. Because, I’ve heard a lot of this stuff before, but I wasn’t given the exact model or the exact steps to walk through it and actually do do the deal, walk the walk.

Unexpected about self: What surprised me about myself in this process is that I’m more caring than I thought I was, in some sense. I think if myself as no-nonsense, and kind of rigid, but doing this helped me open up a lot more, and it’s scary to do that because it makes you vulnerable. And I don’t think I’m charismatic enough, or good enough at it, but it certainly brought out a lot of me but I didn’t know was possible. It softened me a lot.

Trustworthiness: I do think trustworthiness is important and foundational. I like how in LifeWorks would break it down into what it actually means, and that we get very specific information on how to show up as trustworthy. Because if we don’t have the same definition, then we can’t get anything done. So it really, really helps to all be speaking the same thing. And we go over those eight values that build trust over and over whenever we talk about LifeWorks, so it hammers in. I just naturally talk to other friends and say, “Oh where are you not being this?” or “Where are you not being that?” Or I talked to somebody today and said “Oh that was so nice! He was so straightforward and disclosing!” And it gives it gives everybody hopefully a sense of what trustworthiness really means. How I know now if it’s not being shown is if it doesn’t feel right. I don’t just accept that, “Oh that’s just the way this person is.” Or “That’s just a relationship where we just don’t get along well.” I can go further than that now because I know it’s totally possible for anybody to have trust. And I know: you know how there’s diagnostics, like somebody asked about the symptoms? Because I know the eight values that build trust, I know what symptom is being shown, and I know what the treatment is to address it. It’s a lot different than just having a vague sense of, “I’m not getting along all along well.” or “Assigning them some kind of motive that might not be true.” They might be acting that way because I’m not showing up in some way, or they might not know that I want something for more trust, so having that spelled out gives a lot more distinct actions that I can take to build it up again. So I do know immediately when it’s not working and I see it everywhere now and I can know I can make it better. I do know the trustworthiness is getting better here because I don’t have the sense of not getting along well with anybody. I don’t have a sense of tension with people. I know my team when we mentor, I can ask them what relationship is not at a 10, and I think that people are sitting there 10 when I really in an 8 I’ll be honest I think the bar is kind of low but nobody is at a 2 or a 3 and if they are they’re willing to do something because they know what to do. And it’s very it’s very very helpful to be able to walk through that. Everybody can feel a tension when they’re not getting along well, or when you don’t want to make eye contact, or when you think, “Oh my god! So-and-so is in that meeting or in that room and I don’t want to go in there.” That means that trustworthiness is not present.

Mentoring and Training Sessions: From my mentoring and training sessions, I get more specific advice on what to do next, or how to implement this, or how do I acknowledge something that I’m interested in, or clarification. Usually it’s really nice. It’s really nice to get the mentoring because it’s one-on-one. I can read a lot. You can read any book or get any information, but actually applying it to my specific instant situation is different. Having the one-on-one time very, very much helps with that. The monthly mentoring is important because we get to see changes over time, and when we grow and change as a person, it’s, it’s a cause to celebrate. It’s one thing to have a one-and-done, but over time when I am mentored, somebody can say, my mentor can say, “Well last month we talked about this. How is that going?” or “I observe that you changed XYZ as a result of this mentoring. How’s that going? Or they can clarify something that happened in the new training because I can’t get everything all at once and I might need clarification or a tweek or a nuance to something that I didn’t didn’t even think about later.

Greatest challenge: The most challenging thing for me personally is that I can get ‘too far ahead of myself’ or get ‘too know it all.” So knowing that I’m in this mistaken goal, I can come back and kind of redirect myself, or give myself what I need, or I can recognize where I’m not giving things for trust. And that’s just hard. I hate admitting, “Oh, I’m not respectful enough and I’m cutting you off, or I’m downplaying your contribution, or I’m really not hearing you, and that’s just hard to do. And we do it every day, but it’s just hard to do. And I can talk about it all the time. I understand it intellectually, and yet I’ll still snap at my kids, or else still you know type at my computer while somebody’s asking me for something. At least I know about it and I know how to get better. It’s different than just being in denial, or thinking I’m doing everything perfect. It’s worth overcoming the challenges because when you trust someone it’s magic. So much more gets done. So much more is enjoyable to do the work, and you know this is what is the whole is greater than the sum of its parts that’s why it’s worth it.