S5 E4: Featuring Dr. Laura Hamill

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

Hello everyone and welcome to Traceability podcast. I am your host Tracie Edwards. And today my guest is Dr. Laura Hamill. Dr. Laura is an organizational psychologist and business leader. She focuses on the intersection of science and HR, which is super interesting to those of us in STEM fields. And Laura is also an expert on creating great places to work and is the owner of Paris Phoenix Group, a consulting firm specializing in forming and transforming culture. Laura previously worked at Microsoft and was a co-founder of Limeade. She is also written a book on organizational culture called The Power of Culture, written with the Economist. She lives in Washington state with her family and her golden retriever. Thank you so much for joining me today, Laura.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Tracie.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

So we were able to connect through our mutual connection of Sabina Nawaz, so super excited to be able to get some better understanding on organizational culture and change. But as we get going, maybe share a little about your background, how you got your start and what led you to organizational culture.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yeah, thanks. So as you said, I'm an organizational psychologist, but I started out in psychology, undergraduate in psychology and kind of knew that that was what I was interested in when I went to college, but didn't know about organizational psychology. And so luckily I found it. Was in the back of a, I think it was my introduction to psychology textbook. I found it in the textbook where the little place that says careers in psychology. So I was reading that and there was one that said business psychology. And so I dug into that a little bit. My advisor actually told me not to do it. He said that, "It's a fad, it's not going to be around." But luckily I didn't stop with him and went into a neighboring university and talked to them and they said, "Oh, no, no, no, he doesn't know what he's talking about." And so I went to graduate school and got a PhD in organizational psychology and I'm so glad I happened on it in that intro to psychology textbook. And so it's super fun and super interesting. I worked at a bunch of different places, worked at Bell Atlantic, worked at Allstate Insurance, worked at Microsoft, that's how I know Sabina. And when I left Microsoft, I was there about 10 years. I left and started my own consulting practice. And through that consulting practice I actually helped start a company called Limeade, so I was the chief people officer and chief science officer there. So we sold that company to WebMD a couple of years ago. So I've rebooted my consulting practice and written this book. So that's kind of the quick version of many decade [inaudible 00:03:09].

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

Well, that's terrific. I know so many of us who had liberal arts majors in our undergrad often wondered, "Oh my gosh, what am I going to do with this?" So very cool that it had something there for you to dig into a little bit.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Completely. And I still really encourage people. I just the other day was talking to somebody who's in college of look into organizational psychology. It's very interesting. It's compelling and there's a lot really cool jobs in it.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

For sure. It is a hot topic [inaudible 00:03:40]. Maybe it wasn't a few years ago, but things have changed and leadership and management has changed and it's put a real focus and spotlight on organizational culture and whether or not it's healthy. So how would you really define healthy workplace culture?

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Probably if we think about the definition of culture first of the underlying norms and values and beliefs of company. And Edgar Schein is this guy who was the grandfather of organizational culture and that's really his definition. And the way I like to think about it is thinking about an iceberg, right? There's a lot of stuff we see in the surface, but when we're talking about culture, we're talking about the stuff that's deeper down, that's underneath the surface. That's hard to put our finger on. It's hard to define, it's hard to put words to. And so when we really think about that, you can imagine, wow, this is a little complicated. This is hard. This is not just kind of all things people related that we throw into a bucket. That's not really what culture is. It's the hard stuff. It's the deep down stuff. And so just understanding culture generally is hard. But then if you start to define a healthy culture, it's even harder. And so I'd say what's really important about it is that it's aligned. And what I mean by that is that your culture is aligned with the business strategy or with the purpose or the vision of the company. It's aligned with what you're trying to achieve. And that alignment is really important. And a lot of companies have never really connected the dots between the culture they're trying to create, the business results they're trying to achieve. They tend to put culture in a bucket over here on the side of this nice fun stuff that we should work on when we have time or something we give to head of HR or to a group of employees like, "Yeah, that's nice, I support you going to work on that." They don't do the work to connect it with, "Oh my gosh, this is fundamental to what we're trying to achieve as a company." So alignment, when I think about a healthy workplace culture, there's a real alignment. That's one kind of piece. I'd say the second part that needs to be in place for a healthy workplace culture is we need to think about the human beings, the human-ness of our organization. And that can be, of course, you can think about it maybe from a customer perspective or the ultimate purpose of the organization and what we're trying to achieve with humans. But it's really important to also think about these people, these humans that are here with us that we're all working with, what do we need to do in terms of how we are together to really support the humans? And so I'd say it's really those two things, being aligned and being human centered.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

Well, so then that sort of leads me into some of what people think is culture and what culture is not. And I think we're finding this especially lately in the tech company world, ping pong, driving range, those kind of things are not necessarily culture. So are there other sort of misconceptions about culture?

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Oh, yeah. I mean there's so many. This is actually one of the reasons why I wanted to write this book is the very nature of culture is really hard. It's really confusing. It creates all kinds of misconceptions. And so I'd say one of the ones in addition to thinking that it's the stuff that's surface level, like ping pong tables and margaritas or pizza parties, some other things in addition to that have to do with what something I was kind of mentioning before, that oftentimes leaders think that this is something that they can just assign to somebody else or that they can give as work, even though they are in support of it, they think that they don't have to drive it. And that's one of the things that I hate to break the news to leaders, but no, actually, if you actually want culture to be authentic and alive in your organization, you have to be driving it. And the reason for that is that culture and power go hand in hand. People really look to the people in the senior most positions in the organization because they're the ones who've made it, made it in the system. They look to those people to see, well, how are we supposed to do things? What's really important here? What are the things I should be doing if I want to keep working here? I'm going to look to those people who've really made it and see from them what they're doing. And so if we have leaders who aren't the voice of this aspirational culture, that's a real problem because more than likely they're doing things that go against the culture that you're trying to create. So power and culture go hand in hand. So that's one of the things I see leaders do or a misconception is that they can just assign it to the head of HR or assign it to a group of very well-intentioned employees and they just can't do that. I'd say also thinking about culture as a project that it's like, "Okay, well next quarter we're going to work on culture and we're going to do a couple little fun things or even do something that's got a little substance to it, but just do it for one quarter." And this is part of the thing that's hard about culture work is that this is an ongoing commitment. It takes years and years and years to see culture shift and to see the culture really come to life. So it's a commitment. It's not a project, it's not a quarterly initiative. And then I say the third one and the last one is they think that there's a culture cookie cutter, like, "Oh, my buddy over here is the CEO of this other company. They did these really cool things and we should do that here." Or, "I just read this book on Netflix and their culture, and why don't we just take that culture cookie cutter and stamp it over here?" And that's another thing that's the nature of culture really means that we have to roll our sleeves up and we have to do the work that's specific to us, to our context, to our strategy, to our unique situation, and we have to work on it for us.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

That is so true. And I think one of the challenges also is that we are in a day and age when leadership sort of cycles through our organizations. CEOs, other executives may not be there for very long, and when they do come in, they think, okay, we're going to transform our culture. And I guess I pose the question, as a newer executive in an organization, how do you maybe try to transform what you've already got and maybe take it off in a new direction?

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yeah, I think there has to be a real acknowledgement of what the past is, where the organization has come from, but also how do we build off of the things that are really good in our culture? So one of the things I really like to do, or the set of questions that I like to ask is what about our current culture is really helping us? What are the things that we know we don't want to lose that about our culture. These things are helping us be successful and getting really intentional about keeping those things is a big part of the conversation, I think if you're coming in as a new executive. Now on top of that, I also want to know what are some of the aspects of the culture that are holding us back? That's a really important, I think way of framing it is holding us back because it's within the context of us succeeding with our business. So it's not just like, "Oh, the culture I had at this other company that I worked at, we did these things, so let's do that here." That's not what we're talking about. It's all within the context of what's helping us, what's holding us back from the things that we need to achieve as a business.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

I like that. Often I think we're gung ho about, "Oh, we got to do this, change this," and we don't think about the things that are actually going that we can leverage.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yeah, completely. Completely.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

So you've talked about a framework called the Intentional Culture Circle. How can a framework of that nature sort of help align that culture and relieve some of those misconceptions?

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

So this just maybe a little history on this circle, I was, for many years I've worked on many different topics that kind of jutted up against culture. And so I've worked on employee engagement, I've worked on employee well-being and culture is always in the conversation. How is the culture aligned with our work on engagement? How is the culture aligned with our work on well-being? So it's always been in the backdrop of the work that I've been doing. And so over time I started to realize, "Gosh, I've read a lot in more academic journals about culture and what it is and what it looks like, but the practice of culture is really nothing like what the journals say." What we know from a formal academic perspective is just different from the practice. And so I started to jot down and think about what are some real practical easy things that I know I could do to work on culture in this particular company or in this particular situation? So I started to form a set of actions and really the idea with the Intentional Culture Circle is just to try to make it accessible. Just because you're doing culture work doesn't mean you have to go hire a big consulting firm to swoop in and do all the work. It's actually very doable. It's just because it feels really big, it can feel really overwhelming. It also because of some of the things I mentioned before, just the nature of culture just makes it [inaudible 00:13:36]. It's hard to get our fingers around, our hands around. So I started to think about what those steps are. So the Intentional Culture Circle is a key part of my book and it really just takes step by step here are some things you can do. Some of the things that are in there are really starting with a vision of the culture that you want to create. You have to be able to articulate it, you have to be able to envision it in order for it to be able to be realized. So how can we get really clear about this culture we need to have in the future and why we need it? Why is it going to help us achieve our business goals, our strategy or our vision? What about that future culture is really going to help us? And how does it connect with where we are now? To the conversation earlier, there's some parts of this that we're pretty close to, but there are other places where we have a lot of work to do. So it paints the picture. It really starts to articulate what it is that we need. So that's where you need to start. But along the path of this circle, there are other things like how do we create behaviors for people so that they understand what does it actually look like for me as an employee to demonstrate this culture, to bring this culture life with my own behaviors? What does it look like for this organization to teach people or educate people about culture on an ongoing basis? How does it show up in onboarding or employee development? So there's a whole series, there's a whole bunch of different parts of the circle. A couple other ones are about how we communicate. There's such a opportunity for internal communication that has just this drum beat of what's important about our culture so that people see it and hear it everywhere they go. I'm skipping over a bunch of the different parts of the circle, but maybe just the last one is around the systems and practices. How do we make sure that the culture we're trying to create isn't just on our website or behind the receptionist desk, that it actually is embedded in a whole bunch of aspects of our people system, but also other systems. So you can imagine talking about culture when you're hiring somebody or onboarding somebody or thinking about performance management, that should be very embedded. But also in terms of when we think about strategic planning, when we think about what we're going to invest in for next year, how does the culture we're trying to create influence that, how we work with our customers, our culture should be reflected in how we work with our customers. So the idea is really embedding the culture we need to have in everything that we do. So that's a summary of the Intentional Culture Circle. The thing that's tricky about it, is it a circle and meaning there's always more.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

You have to keep going.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Keep going in a circle, but I think what also is good about the circle is that organizations could see themselves in different places in the circle and kind of jump into the circle wherever they need to start working.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

Well, and I appreciate the circle aspect of it. A lot of the research that I have done on change management, technical change, cultural change, it does not end with a release of a new thing. And so you've got to embed that change and then you've got to have that culture of continually working to improve and support where you are with the culture.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Completely, completely. And a lot of the change, cycles do tend to be a little more linear, don't they? [inaudible 00:17:03] that are circles, but some of them are just like, "You're done."

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

Another hot topic. Since the pandemic is really culture as it relates to remote and hybrid work. And I know a lot of leaders have questions. And what would be your advice for leaders who are trying to figure out where they are in a now remote and hybrid work world with distributed teams in all different time zones and...

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yeah. It's hard. It's really hard. I think that there's a little bit of acknowledgement of when many of us were in more of an office setting, we actually had a lot more around us that helped communicate the culture and I call those culture props. You had all these culture props all around you. Sometimes it was the way the office was set up or the art in the office, those kinds of things that you could think of. But a lot of times it was more things like the encouragement to go get a coffee to get, sort of the norms around that. You had all of this stuff that was around us that sort of encouraged certain aspects of the culture. And when we don't have that and we have these little boxes that we're in, we don't have any other culture props that are helping us. So what that means is we just have these human people in these boxes. They're the ones that have to do all the culture work. And so what I would say with remote and hybrid and when we're thinking about culture, being a thoughtful and intentional manager and leader is way more important. So I think the idea of making the time for connecting with people as human beings because we don't have that chance to go have a coffee with them or just see them in the hall, we have to be intentional about that and not think that the time at the beginning of the meeting where we just hear how they're doing or what's going on with their kids or see their pet in the background, that's not wasted time. That is good intentional time. But I also think how every manager is understanding the culture that the organization is intending to create and how they're talking about it and reinforcing this in these Zoom and Teams meetings is also really important. It's this extra layer of responsibility I think for managers and leaders to be real culture architects and culture advocates and culture champions that they should have been doing before, but maybe they had some other things that were helping them

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

I'm wondering about cues. So when you're in person, it's easy to sort of get a feel for what cues you're hearing or seeing verbal and non-verbal. And it's often much harder to do that.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yes, it's so hard and you think they're just so removed when we're online and in these boxes. And so there's so many other messages you get about what's really important when you're in person. And so I think to me, optimal is a little bit of a hybrid approach. If we can get together and obviously when we get together we shouldn't, it's not just that we get people into rooms getting back into Zoom boxes, which happens, I know. But real intentional time together can help that a lot and having that on a fairly regular basis.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

So how has that impacted you as an executive? You have been a chief people officer, a chief science officer. How do you push that down to the different layers of the organization?

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

So being a chief people officer was one of the biggest learning roles for me. I've always, as an organizational psychologist, I've primarily been in science types of jobs, so chief science officer types of jobs, head of research kind of jobs. And I must admit that when I was in those roles, I was a little finger waggy about, "Come on HR, you can do better, be more strategic." And oh, when I was actually a chief people officer, you just see how hard it is. There's so much that's reactionary about that job. There's so many things, unpredictable things that come at you every day so you're really always balancing some usually pretty dramatic big things with this desire to make big changes and to change the culture and to work on those things that are super transformational. So I think having both of those roles helped me really have a little more empathy for people and help me really see the complexity. And again, that's part of the reason why I wanted to write this book too, is because of that very problem of what we know from a science perspective and then just how hard the reality is of running organizations and especially dealing with the things that are related to people. So I just feel like I've learned a ton by having exposure to both of those. And when it comes to culture, it was actually a really unique situation that I had being a co-founder of that company. So we started that company with an idea and then we grew it to, when I left, we had about 375 employees. And so to be part of seeing that happen and being an active kind of person there working to be intentional about the culture, that was just an amazing experience. And luckily, the CEO and I both really bought into and felt a sense of responsibility around being intentional about culture. So we worked on that and that's where the culture circle, I started to scribble it and I had it up on my wall and he and I worked on that and really talked a lot about it. And so I got to really see what happens when you are intentional about it. It's pretty amazing when you, and it takes years to do, but when you start to see the fruits of it where people are really wanting to be part of this thing and that feeling of being connected and unified and that for the most part we're rowing in the same direction. We're all bought into what we're trying to do and we're all trying to do it together. It was amazing. So, when I was thinking about the title of this book, The Power of Culture, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to call it the Power of Culture because that feeling is so powerful when you're part of something that is that aligned and that human centered. So yes, it was a really unique experience for me to have both of those roles.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

And not just feeling powerful but empowered in the work that you were trying to do. So you've talked about empathy. I know that compassion is also a hot topic these days, especially as it relates to organizational results, but employee well-being. Do you have any recommendations for maybe how to balance those things while having empathy and compassion?

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yeah, I think this is a human tendency, especially an American tendency to think if it's one or the other, right? Either we get results and are high performing or we care about people. And one of the ways of thinking about this that I think is helpful is the idea of a polarity. A polarity is actually doing two things at the same time and that both of them matter. You're trying to optimize both of them. And also you think about that they go hand in hand. They're related to each other. So the simplest form of a polarity is breathing in and breathing out. In order to breathe out, you need to breathe in. Or thinking about work-life balance. You need to have work in your life, but you also need to have downtime. And so those things go together, they work together. That's the way I feel about results and feel about treating people with care and caring about them as human beings. It's not either or. It's both. And for some reason, American society thinks that it's one or the other. And I think that it's not easy to do both. And there's a lot of gray space you have to work within, right? It's not just super simple check the box kind of activities. But if you actually come into thinking about my philosophy of work being that I want to care about people as human beings, and if I do that, I will get probably better results and I get better results when I care about human beings and that those go hand in hand, then that to me is a much more healthy way of thinking about it. So when we think about creating aspirational cultures, that's why I'm always really emphasizing the human beings need to be represented in this aspirational culture that you're trying to articulate maybe through values or guiding principles. We need to talk about valuing people, fundamentally caring about them as human beings. And so to me, wellbeing is critical idea that needs to be included in an aspirational culture.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

And really we're talking about leadership on one hand and followership on the other hand. And how we approach people as leaders is what makes them want to follow their leaders.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yeah, right. And the fundamental valuing of them. Ultimately, I think that there are a lot of leaders who haven't had good role models to understand how to do that. And I used to be also a little finger waggy with leaders too. But I remember one time I was doing a talk and I was talking about wellbeing and how it's related to business results. And I sat next to this guy afterwards. It was a luncheon. I sat next to him and he was the COO of a big hospital system. And he whispered to me and said, "I really like what you're saying, but I've never experienced that myself." And I was like, "Wow." I just kind of opened my eyes. I mean, I guess I knew that intellectually that a lot of people haven't. But to hear him say that this guy who's looks real corporate buttoned up to say he doesn't know how to do that, that's not the modeling, the leadership modeling he's gotten. And it's like, "Wow, how do we help people with that?" Because I kind of think he would've liked to have some of that in his life,

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

I'm sure. And I think we both know that people often rise to leadership without having sort of been trained in how to be good leaders. They're elevated because of their knowledge and their ability to do their work well, but as they grow more in their careers, that's often sort of a blind spot in organizations, I think.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

That's right. That's right. Completely agree. And some people just by happenstance have been around other leaders who they can look to learn from, that learn some positive things, but they also have other leaders who they've learned not so great things from. So it is, it's a real struggle. And when we think about culture, it's a really interesting thing when you think about how important it is that leaders are driving culture, but a lot of times they're part of this system that we just described where they don't know anything different. They might not have had role models of thinking about driving culture in a more progressive kind of way. And they also have been reinforced in this system. They've been promoted in many cases to be the head of this system. And so there's nothing wrong with this culture. This culture said, "I was really good." This culture said, "They've reinforced me to be at the top of this. What's so bad about it? What needs to change about it?" And so that's one of the things that makes culture work really hard. And just to pile onto that, I'm sure you've heard this idea before, but culture in and of itself, once you're part of it, after you've kind of joined an organization and been onboarded, it's so interesting because you can't even see it anymore. You start to just become part of the culture. And it's sort of the analogy of does a goldfish even know it's swimming in water? And so it's the water we swim in, and it's so natural and it's so comfortable, it's just what we do that you can't see the water anymore. And so think about all these layers of like, "Oh, no wonder culture is hard to change." And it's because of the very nature of culture. And so when you're a leader and situation we just described, it's really hard to get leaders to change the culture.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

I really love that analogy. And I think back to some of the roles that I've held previously, how you take on a culture for good or ill the longer that you're within it. So that would be a super interesting resource project.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yes. Yes, completely. And how it sort of becomes self-reinforcing, right? Especially if the business is doing all right or if there's some aspects of the business that are doing all right. It's really hard to get out of that loop.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

For sure. So you also have a podcast and you talk to many people, leaders and organizations and consult with many of them. So are there some particular best practices that you sort of gathered for creating that positive work-life culture? Maybe baby steps, maybe giant steps?

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yeah, I think it's tricky because I think everybody's trying to figure it out. One of the themes that's consistent is being curious and wanting to learn. And that the organizations and the people who are working on things like culture and wellbeing and care about positive psychology are the ones who are not just putting their heads down and saying, "I can't do anything about this. I can't change it. Why try?" They're actually lifting their heads up and saying, "I want to make this better, and I'm curious about how to make this better. I want to learn. I want to try things. I want to experiment." And so there's a big theme across the people that we talk to that is about that. And I think inherent to that, if you do kind of stick your head up and you do want to experiment and learn, there's sort of like this inherent optimism, this belief that it can get better, that we can try. And that to me is a big part of it. And I guess maybe the second thing I'd say is it's about doing the work. And I know that doesn't sound very fun. It's not very sexy, but it's the idea of you got to roll your sleeves up and you got to dig in and figure out what do we need to change about how we are here together? What do we need to change about we're saying we care about, and that's hard work and nobody can do it for you. And again, that's such a bummer, right? Wouldn't it be so great if somebody could do it for you?

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

Magic pill.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Magic pill, something. It would be so much easier. But a lot of the people we talk to are just the ones who have that kind of learning, experimentation, optimism, but also like, "Let's do it, let's dig in. Let's figure this out."

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

I love that, the curiosity aspect. And as we wrap up today, and maybe this is restating what you just talked about, but for leaders who are just sort of starting their journey or they're interested in a culture change in going a particular direction, that advice to leaders who are sort of starting off in that direction.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yeah. So first, I know you know this, but let's just say it out loud, you already have a culture, there's a culture that's happening right now. Is the culture that's happening right now, is it helping you or is it holding you back? Which aspects are helping you? Which aspects are holding you back? I would say just because it's hard and it feels like it's a little scary, that shouldn't mean that you don't pay attention to it. It shouldn't mean that you ignore it and put your head in the sand and say, "Let me just cross my fingers and hope that it goes okay." I'd say take a step. One of the simplest, easiest things you can do is look at your values and ask people, "Do these resonate? Are we living these?" Take each one and break it down and just start talking to people about it. And I think you'll start to uncover, "Oh, there's some things here that are going pretty well, but there's also some things we really should work on, especially if we want to achieve the results we say we want to achieve." So just take a step, I guess, would be the recommendation.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

And I think that's a perfect note to really wrap this up on taking a step and being willing to sort of assess before jumping off into a solution is sort of what I'm taking away from that. Perfect spot to end on. I thank you so much for being here. This has been just the funnest conversation for me. It really speaks to everything that I've been learning the last several years about organizations and leadership.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Awesome. Thanks so much for having me, and congratulations to you, Tracie, on your dissertation defense.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

Thank you. Thank you. Super exciting. And now it's time to regroup and see what's next, as you know.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Yes. Maybe take a breather for a second too.

Speaker 1: Tracie Edwards:

Good point. Well, for our listeners, thank you so much for being with us today. And if you would be so kind as to look for Laura's book, The Power of Culture, check out the Happy at Work podcast hosted by Dr. Hamill. And if you enjoyed the podcast today, please go to Apple or Spotify and look for Traceability and leave us the review. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks, Laura.

Speaker 2: Laura Hamill:

Thanks so much, Tracie.