The cavnessHR podcast – A talk with Russ Elliot
Click below for the PDF version with the links to the YouTube video of the podcast.
Russ Elliot, an expert on organizational culture, is the founder of the Conscious Culture Group, a consulting and executive coaching company committed to linking culture to performance by creating ownership for culture and fully understanding the employee experience. Working closely with leaders, Russ helps create organizational changes that build more effective and intentional cultures holistically. Russ brings his 32 years of HR practitioner experience to his consulting practice.
While serving as a SVP HR Director, his organization was recognized as a Best Place to Work in Silicon Valley and nationally as one of the top 40 Best Banks to Work For. Russ, SPHR certified, is on the faculty of UC Berkeley extension, Global Institute of Leadership Development and Women in Leadership. Russ’ articles have been published in national HR magazines and he has been interviewed as an HR/culture expert for national HR articles. Russ holds a BS in Business and an MA in HR.
The cavnessHR Podcast can be found at the following places or you can just type in cavnessHR on the respective app.
iTunes: http://cavnesshr.co/theca7b91
Stitcher: http://cavnesshr.co/thecad004
Soundcloud: https://rebrand.ly/theca16dc3
YouTube: https://rebrand.ly/youtue7955
Anchor: https://rebrand.ly/theca22531
Google Play: https://rebrand.ly/ac87c
Spotify: https://rebrand.ly/theca4363c
Pocket Casts: https://rebrand.ly/thecaaf2e1
Social Media links for Russ below!!
https://www.consciousculturegroup.com/ Conscious Culture Group
https://twitter.com/ShapingCulture @ShapingCulture
https://www.linkedin.com/in/russelliot/ Russ Elliot
https://www.facebook.com/ConsciousCultureGroup/?ref=settings Conscious Culture Group
Below are Russ’ book recommendation:
“Work Rules” by Laszlo Bock
Click on the links below to purchase the books from Amazon.
http://amzn.to/2HimIxz
Free Resources Below!!!!
I offer you, anybody that's wanting to explore and understand their company culture. A free 30-minute consult.
Jason: 0:01 Hello, and welcome to the cavnessHR Podcast. I’m your host, Jason Cavness. Our guest today is Russ Elliot. Russ, are you ready to be great today?
Russ: 0:10 I am.
Jason: 0:13 Russ Elliot, an expert on organizational culture, is the founder of the Conscious Culture Group. A consulting and executive coaching company committed to linking culture to performance by creating ownership for culture and fully understanding the employee experience. Working closely with leaders, Russ helps create organizational changes that build more effective and intentional cultures holistically. Russ brings his 32 years of HR practitioner experience to his consulting practice. While serving as a SVP HR Director, his organization was recognized as a Best Place to Work in Silicon Valley and nationally as one of the top 40 Best Banks to Work For. Russ, who is SPHR certified, is on the faculty of UC Berkeley extension, Global Institute of Leadership Development and Women in Leadership. Russ’ articles have been published in national HR magazines and he has been interviewed as an HR/culture expert for national HR articles. Russ holds a BS in Business and an MA in HR. Russ, thank you for being here, I know you have a lot going on.
Russ: 1:25 Yeah, it's good to be with you, Jason.
Jason: 1:26 So what's going on in the life of Russ Elliot and your company right now?
Russ: 1:29 Yeah, what's going on. So there are two interesting things I’m in the middle of: one, we rolled out a five-question survey for folks around company culture. The results are coming in, and it's really interesting to see the results of that five questions that really speak to the state of the culture, the knowledge, the leader’s role. The other is I've finished writing a leader's guide, a practical guide for company culture, and so that's about to be published and rolled out in the next four or six weeks. So those are two big projects that I’m in the middle of right now.
Jason: 2:05 Russ, talk about the importance of culture to a company. It seems like most companies, they always say culture is for later on, that’s for when you get the employment to 25 or 30. I don’t think they realize that, by the time you have an employment of 10, your culture has already been established.
Russ: 2:21 Yeah, culture is established, even if it's a company of just two employees. There is a version of culture. When you get it to ten, twenty, thirty, forty, the culture mimics, really, who the CEO, the top two leaders, top three leaders, who they are, and people try to mimic what those leaders are doing. So that becomes the culture. I call it an unintentional culture – unconscious culture – because it's not really clearly stated. People are trying to guess on the best way to be. So, whether it's a small company of ten, and in fact, I'm working with a group that has three employees, so even if it's a company of ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, there is a culture.
Jason: 3:07 So what’s your philosophy? Some out there say, culture belongs to HR; other people say, “no, culture is the CEO’s domain,” other people say, “no, it's everyone’s responsibility.”
Russ: 3:18 Yeah. So, I believe that culture is a partnership with the top leadership team, including HR, and the employee. I believe there’s some ownership to the culture with employees, that the best path to creating a conscious culture is understanding what the leader’s intentions are and then building a bridge with the employee experience. What I've seen out there – so, 32 years in HR, I've seen a lot. Before I opened up my consulting group, I really got to understand all the different levers around culture. What's often missed is that the leaders have an intention on the culture. They want X, Y, Z, to happen, but they don't check in on the employee experience, [i.e.] what is truly going on. That is, if you interview ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, employees and ask them what the employee experience is like. The key to a successful, intentional culture is building a bridge between the leader’s intention and the employees, and, hopefully, HR is part of that leadership team.
Jason: 4:19 Yes. I remember reading somewhere that, often, people come in and ask the CEOs or the founders, “did the employee know what's going on?” They always say, “oh yes, of course they know, obviously; I send out emails, I talk to them.” But then they talk to employees and the employees have a big disconnect with what the founders or CEOs actually want to happen.
Russ: 4:43 Yeah. It depends on the culture, whether there's trust and communication going on a regular basis. But more often than not, the leadership team is not fully aware of the challenges that every employee faces. There are different kinds of surveys out there. There are engagement surveys, and culture surveys. What we do is we create, once we get to understand the needs and desires of the leadership team. We create a customized culture survey that really helps to understand, helps give employees an anonymous way of saying this is what our experience is, this is what's working well. Keep doing those things, and these are the challenges we're having. For example, it may feel like promotions only go to friends of founders; these are important things to understand in order to build and create a better, stronger culture.
Jason: 5:36 Yes, and even if that's not true, it’s like what they say: perception is reality.
Russ: 5:40 Perception is reality, exactly. In an effectively written and executed culture survey. Where there is transparency around it and follow-up and actions that come out of the survey with a group of employees. Then you start creating buy-in to the culture and understanding of what the culture is.
Jason: 6:02 Now, Russ, you’re in the Silicon Valley area, correct?
Russ: 6:05 That is correct.
Jason: 6:06 So what percentage of your companies that you work with are startups? What are already traditional businesses, so to speak?
Russ: 6:13 Typically, when they're really new and young, the culture is not the first thing that they’re thinking about with startups. There are some that say, “let's build the company around the culture and be really clear up front what it is.” A really good example would be Riot Games, or a really good example would be Lyft – those are companies [where] the founders, up front, said, “this is the culture we want and we need to make sure that we consistently reinforce the things that we think are going to be successful.” Those are unusual cases; most often in startups, they're going ninety miles an hour focusing on product development.
Jason: 6:54 Yes. And another thing, people always say “great culture,” but my question is: great culture for who? Because each culture is different. An example I like to use is Starbucks and Amazon are two different cultures and both are successful for them, but if you’re a Starbucks employee and go to Amazon, if you don't change to Amazon culture, you’re probably not going to be successful, and vice versa.
Russ: 7:14 Yeah, and Apple and Microsoft would be another example of that. I'm not an advocate that there is only one best culture. I am an advocate of being clear about the culture that you want that is going to make your competitive edge. That is going to be your culture advantage, and when you're able to do that, and you have clarity around that. Reinforcing that, and importantly, attracting employees who want to be part of that. That's when you're going to be a successful organization. So, whether it's Apple or whether it's IBM, whether it's Amazon. Each culture is going to be different and it's about attracting and retaining the people that are going to be succeeding in the organization you're creating with the culture that you're intentionally creating.
Jason: 7:58 Yes. Russ, one of the opportunities I think a lot of companies miss out on is the exit interview. Why is it that a lot of companies pass over this opportunity to learn? Of course, there will be a couple of people who are bitter and, of course, there are some bad stuff in there that really isn’t true. But I think, for the most part, employees are going to honest. Why do most companies miss this opportunity?
Russ: 8:17 I love this question because it is often not asked and often missed. I think exit interviews, when done well, are a rich source of feedback for the leadership team. When I was in the HR role, I spent a long time – a good hour – exiting interviews, really understanding the information. What I would share with the person that I'm exiting is that what I'm looking for are patterns. I'm not interested in saying, “Sam Smith feels this way,” but I am interested saying, “in the last five people I talked to, this is the issue that's being raised. We have, now, a valid reason why people are leaving and why we need to create some change in this particular area.” When you can develop trust with people that you're exiting. They're willing to share what truly is going on; it's a rich source of information that's often overlooked. I'm not a fan of these survey exit interviews where you sign up online, check some boxes and you're done in five minutes – I believe in in-person, deep-asking questions that really help understand the truth behind why someone left instead of the reason why they're going somewhere else.
Jason: 9:30 For example, suppose you have 5 exiting interviews and all 5 say, “supervisor X was the reason I left.” Well, now you know supervisor X needs some training. With no exiting interview, you’ll have no idea that problem existed.
Russ: 9:44 Yeah. That's a really good example because it may be that supervisor X is a micromanager and the people that are leaving are the highly creative folks that really want to be able to explore a little bit, not every decision is overlooked by their manager. So you end up losing a large group of people who want to be creative and resourceful and they're being limited not because the manager is a bad person. Simply because they haven't developed the skillsets around effectively empowering and delegating to people. Then you know that you can develop that person with that information.
Jason: 10:21 Yes. I think the challenge with a lot of companies now is also, “oh, we're making real profit, things are getting along good.” But don’t you want to improve, don’t you want to get better, or do you just want to be a status quo? I think that’s a problem, too, with a lot of companies nowadays.
Russ: 10:34 Yeah. There's plenty of evidence now out there that organizations that do focus on creating an intentional culture outperform their competitors. It's clear that this is now a competitive edge for organizations that – particularly millennials. They're going to go online, they're going to take a look at what is it like to work for X, Y, Z. They may simply not even apply because of the online reputation. So, particularly these days with millennials, culture is reason a millennial will join or not join a company. If they're inspired by the mission statement, if they're excited about what it's like to work there. If there's online video that shows, gives examples, of the culture and the work environment, that's going to draw the best talent.
Jason: 11:23 Yes. I think a lot of companies don’t realize that they have their own employee branding, too. It’s like they want to pull in customers, but they also want to pull in the right employees also. Culture’s a big part of that, I think.
Russ: 11:36 Yeah. And, in fact, I was having a conversation, yesterday, with a potential client and you look online and you notice that there isn't much on their website around their culture. They go, “yeah, you're right, I guess it's not there.” So that's a big part of creating a conscious culture is ensuring that your employment brand really effectively tells the story of what it's like to work there, what the culture is like, why would I want to work for you. That has to be answered on the website or in social media.
Jason: 12:08 Yes. There's a company out of San Francisco called Close.io. They’re a sales company and the CEO’s Steli Efti, and I think they have a great culture. He does blogs every week. He does blogs about his culture, they’re a remote company, they do twice-a-year retreats, and he’s very open and transparent about, if you come to Close.io. This is the kind of company you’re going to have. I think he does a great job at that.
Russ: 12:30 Yeah, and by doing that, he's going to attract people that really want to be part of what he's creating and that's the kind of employee. That's the crew that you want that are excited to be there. Excited and passionate about the product, about the organization, about the business, about the success, about their contribution and their growth in the business. These are things that are going to attract millennials. They’re nearly 50% of the workforce, right now.
Jason: 12:54 Yes, like us, when we were coming up it was like, “oh, you have to stay on one job for as long as you can,” while millennials have no problem – if they feel like it’s too much, they’ll go ahead and find another job, they have no problem with doing that.
Russ: 13:09 I think that's true. I think they're searching for that right job, and it's really interesting. I have two boys that are both millennials, and one, right out of college. Found a job that is a really good fit, and I suspect he's going to be in that job for quite a long time. Because it's exactly the right job for him, the exact, right company, it is a really good culture fit for him. I think millennials are searching for that – that right culture fit – and when they find it, they're going to stay a while.
Jason: 13:38 Yes. Russ, now let's talk about a time you were successful in the past, what you learned from this success, and what our listeners can learn from this success.
Russ: 13:47 What comes to mind is in the last corporate position I had. Before accepting that, I had two offers, and it was a really interesting time. I knew that I was likely to have one more job before I got into consulting and executive coaching. So with these two positions, one was going to be extremely challenging, difficult, it was going to push my edge, there was risk around. Will I be successful or not be successful – and it paid really well. The second job was safer; lower pay, I can do this (not my sleep), but I can do it fairly easy. So I met with my career coach the Friday morning before I was to decide which job to take and I ended up going with the one that was more challenging, and that was such the right decision for my life. In that, I stepped out of my comfort zone and I took it on; I, personally and professionally, grew so much. It was a good decision. So, what did I learn? That there are times you just need to step out of your comfort zone, go after a job that, even if you feel it's a little bigger than you, to go ahead and move forward with it.
Jason: 14:59 Russ, next, talk about a time that you failed in the past, what you learned from this failure, and what our listeners can learn from this failure.
Russ: 15:06 So what comes to mind is around job fit. I was involved in a company where it simply wasn’t a fit. It's kind of an interesting story – an unusual one. I think your HR audience will relate to it, as well as others. So I went and interviewed for a company. Talked with the CEO for an hour, talked with the second in command for an hour. At the end of those two hours, went back to talk to the CEO, and he had in front of him a job offer where I was receiving a 20% increase in pay (the compensation package was a 20% increase). They asked me to make a decision in 24 hours or I’m out. I said “yes” to that and I got in there and it seemed like, “wow, who wouldn't want that increase in pay.” When I was in that job, my values and the values of the leadership team simply were not aligned. So it was a very difficult few months, for me and for them. So what I learned around that is, particularly in HR. You need to ensure that your values and the values of the leadership team are aligned and fit is really critical. Everyone makes those kinds of mistakes – they're in a job and they go, “not quite right for me.” I should have figured out, when they made a decision in two hours. That's how they work; they're more about ready, fire, aim than ready, aim, fire.
Jason: 16:40 Yes. Russ, so do you focus mainly on the Silicon Valley area, or are you California-wide, nationwide?
Russ: 16:49 Actually, international. I was in Mexico last week working with a company.
Jason: 16:53 So how do you market your company? Are you doing any marking efforts, or is it mainly word-of-mouth and your reputation so far?
Russ: 17:00 Yes. The work usually comes from one of two ways – referrals, most of it comes from referrals; the other way is through social media. I tend to write a lot, I'm involved a lot, I've got 7 talks in the next six months that I'm giving. So I get up in front of groups a lot at conferences. So when people get see me and know me and feel me, then they can go, “oh, I can trust this person.” Because, think about it, when they're hiring me, hiring somebody from the conscious culture group there's, tremendous amount of trust in the keys that they're providing us. So it's really about building that trust with the leadership team where they go, “I got it, I understand what this person's about. I understand the work that the conscious culture group is doing and I feel like they're the right partner for us – that's not a ten-minute decision, that usually takes a while to really get there.
Jason: 17:53 Yes. Like I tell people from my own company, I know I'm not selling candy bars; it’s going to take a while to establish relationships and build up trust before they take me on as their HR.
Russ: 18:04 Yes. Absolutely. When you're in HR, it's the same level of trust. That there needs to be a strong alignment between who you are as an individual and your value system and the organizational value system and the leadership value system. When they're misaligned, it shows up very quickly.
Jason: 18:24 Russ, talk about someone who's helped you in the past and how they helped you.
Russ: 18:28 That's an easy one for me; I was very lucky. Right out of grad school, my first boss was Bill Erwin – and I'm still in touch with Bill. Bill really demonstrated to me, early on in my career, what a role model HR leader looks like. When Bill went around the plant (and there were 600 employees on the plant), he knew everybody by name. For many of them, he knew about their families, he knew, for many of them, when they were going on vacation, where they were going. He developed really good relationships with every employee. He showed me the importance of everybody's important, everybody contributes, build relationships with everyone. He really demonstrated the keys around respect, collaboration; he was very even in his temperament, very approachable. Bill set a high standard for me on, “one day, I want to be like Bill.”
Jason: 19:27 It's always amazed me how many so-called HR leaders don't get that aspect of HR; they’re missing that.
Russ: 19:35 Yeah, I think that's true. Whoever you are, as you are, I don't want to advocate that there's only one way of being HR. Different organizational cultures need different kinds of HR leaders. But I was able to find who I was and where I could best offer my contribution to an organization. That was around collaboration and respect and really getting to know people and build relationships. Those are things that I strived for when I was in the field.
Jason: 20:07 Russ, let’s say there’s someone graduating from college this summer. They have a degree in business and they want to be an HR professional. What advice would you have for this person?
Russ: 20:18 Hopefully, I’d get them before they graduate. The first thing I would say is volunteer and work in an HR department. This is actually what I did when I was in school. Just get in there, get some experience, slowly build up your resume, really test the waters whether this is interesting work to you or not. There are many facets of HR. So, do you want to be a generalist or do you only want to work within staffing or compensation? Or do you want to work on analytics, if that's your thing? So I would say, first, an unpaid internship, if you can get that, and then, if you can, a paid internship. In all of that, it will distinguish you a little bit more from everybody else that's out there. I also highly recommend attending a local, monthly HR gathering. Get to know people, sit down, have a cup of coffee with them. Get to know their experience, learn from them, build relationships with them . Maybe one of them will be a mentor for you and they'll be able to guide you along the way. So, the more you can build relationships, the more you can demonstrate some level of competency. The more you have a better understanding of what part of HR interests you, the easier it will go when you get out of college.
Jason: 21:33 Russ, you bring up a great point. I think a lot of people don't realize how expansive HR is. Because there’re companies that just do culture, just do payroll, just do benefits. There’s so much HR stuff out there and a lot of people don’t realize how expansive the breadth and knowledge you need for HR is.
Russ: 21:51 Yeah, and, for me, I've always been what's called a generalist. So my first job, right out of college, was a generalist job. There were times when all I did was training and development or all I did was labor relations, but, for the most part, it's been generalist work. I like that because I like variety; I love, on any given day, there were ten or twelve different kinds of issues. All very different in the ways you had to think about things. I like that kind of challenge. Other people, if they're more analytical, would find that compensation would be something that really interests them. How do you create compensation to motivate the organization. For other people, it's benefits; the larger the company, the more specialized you're going to be. So, if a generalist is what's interesting, then trying to find a smaller company where you may be the only person. Or you may be part of a team with two or three people. But try to get a sense of what really excites you the most because it will show up at work. If you want to be a generalist, try to look for a smaller/mid-size company.
Jason: 22:59 Russ, tell us something about yourself that most people don't know. Of course, your close family, close friends know this, but most people that know you don't know this about you.
Russ: 23:09 So what is something people don't know. Well, if they only knew me from a work perspective, they wouldn’t know that I have a fairly large tattoo on my upper right arm. Because, even if I wore short sleeves, it would be covered. I spent five years trying to figure out what I wanted there, and when I really understood what I wanted was when I was out surfing with a friend of mine. About twenty dolphins came our way. They literally came between our boards, around our boards, and a dolphin popped up. I looked into its eye and there was some eye contact going on and I’m like, “okay, I got it. So my tattoo’s going to have dolphins in there, it's going to be the ocean, I love the mountains.” So I have two dolphins on the tattoo – each one representing my son – and then, when I was with my older son. I was trying to figure out what words to put on it and he said (and he was ten), and he goes, “dad, this is easy – ‘enjoying the journey,’ that's who you are.” Those are the words that I have on my tattoo.
Jason: 24:10 That's a great story, Russ. Russ, do you have a book to recommend for our listeners?
Russ: 24:16 I do. It's Work Rules by Laszlo Bock. As a former practitioner, I believe: let's be really practical about what we can do to change things within systems – HR systems. So Work Rules – Laszlo was the head of HR at Google – and you could pull 50, 60, 70, very practical ideas, things that you could implement, right away, to create the kind of change in the culture. The change of HR systems, to create a more motivating environment. I think he's done a really good job of letting the rest of the HR community know what Google’s been doing, and he also talks about mistakes they've made. So it's good to hear about those mistakes as well.
Jason: 25:05 Russ, I understand you have something for our listeners today.
Free Resources Below!!!!!
Russ: 25:08 I do. So for the listeners – I'm really passionate and love the work that I do – and so I would offer you, anybody that's wanting to explore and understand their company culture. A free 30-minute consult, just because I love talking about it and, in those 30 minutes. I will assure you that there is something that you will be able to do in the next 30 days that's going to start to influence the culture in the intentional, conscious way that you want to, that the organization wants to. There are so many ways doing that. If I understand your story in 15, 20 minutes, and the struggles you have in the next 10 minutes. I will offer you ideas to begin making the shift that you want to make.
Jason: 25:51 Thank you, Russ. That’s very valuable for our listeners. Russ, can provide any social media links either for yourself or for your company so people can reach out to you?
Russ: 26:00 Yes. So the company is Conscious Culture Group – so it's consciousculturegroup.com as our website. On Twitter, I'm at @ShapingCulture and Facebook is Conscious Culture Group. My LinkedIn is Russ Elliot. I would love to connect with people on all of those paths and have dialogue with them about the things that I'm passionate about and that they’re wanting to be more curious and have a greater impact on.
Jason: 26:26 Russ, we’ve come to the end of our talk. Can you provide any last-minute wisdom or advice for our listeners?
Russ: 26:32 Yeah. So if in HR, or anywhere else as an organizational leader. If this idea that you want to create an intentional, conscious culture is something on your list. Understand it's much more like a big ship than a speedboat – it's going to take time. It's going to take patience on building and reinforcing the bridge between what leaders want, what their vision of the culture is, and the employee experience. There are ways and methods to do that that will speed things up a little bit. But it takes patience and it takes time, it's a big ship to turn. I would love to be part of anybody's journey in that.
Jason: 27:14 Thank you, Russ. Russ, thank you for being our guest today, we really appreciate your time, you gave our listeners a lot of value. And thank you, very much, I really appreciate it.
Russ: 27:22 You bet it, Jason. Absolutely.
Jason: 27:24 To our listeners, thank you for your time, as well. And remember to be great every day.
The cavnessHR Podcast can be found at the following places or you can just type in cavnessHR on the respective app.
iTunes: http://cavnesshr.co/theca7b91
Stitcher: http://cavnesshr.co/thecad004
Soundcloud: https://rebrand.ly/theca16dc3
YouTube: https://rebrand.ly/youtue7955
Anchor: https://rebrand.ly/theca22531
Google Play: https://rebrand.ly/ac87c
Spotify: https://rebrand.ly/theca4363c
Pocket Casts: https://rebrand.ly/thecaaf2e1
Social Media links for Russ below!!
https://www.consciousculturegroup.com/ Conscious Culture Group
https://twitter.com/ShapingCulture @ShapingCulture
https://www.linkedin.com/in/russelliot/ Russ Elliot
https://www.facebook.com/ConsciousCultureGroup/?ref=settings Conscious Culture Group
Below are Russ’ book recommendation:
“Work Rules” by Laszlo Bock
Click on the links below to purchase the books from Amazon.
http://amzn.to/2HimIxz
Free Resources Below!!!!
I offer you, anybody that's wanting to explore and understand their company culture. A free 30-minute consult.
CavnessHR: Focus on your business, we've got your HR
Be Great Every Day!
