Sherpa Alliance

One of the most complex, core aspects of your business is your culture and I urge CEOs and executives to be Accentuating Short-Range Culture. Think Cats & Dogs! In my role as a Chair of my Vistage Groups I use the combination of a beanie-baby toy cat and a beanie-baby toy dog as an elegantly simple way to accentuate the accountability aspect of our culture as a group.  How so?

Chairing these groups of A-type personalities is like herding cats! If we aren’t careful we have members doing the crack-berry thing beneath the table, coming back late from the breaks and falling asleep after lunch. If I have no other mechanism in the room, my only option would be to call a halt to proceedings, get up on my soap-box and deliver a little lecturette on why it’s so important … yada, yada, yada. It’s ugly, takes valuable time and makes me the traffic cop - anybody could do it (Anybody, Anybody?) but most people won’t . They just let it go. Even I would let it go more than I should, and therefore, as the saying goes, "we become what we tolerate" and "we encourage what we allow". Its goes from bad to worse.

Instead, by bringing the embarrassingly simple toy cat and toy dog into the room, we now have a “structure” which influences behavior, which we can now leverage. Members lob the cat at other members who are being the head-cat we are most having to herd right now – a member doing the crack-berry thing beneath the table will likely find it incoming in their direction – a member back late from the break will likely find it in their seat – a member falling asleep after lunch will likely find it perched on their shoulder. In the space of a few seconds there is a private message (hey, cut it out, we need you fully present, in the moment, for the important work we are doing), a public message (our time together is incredibly precious and nothing is more important than that right now) and we have some fun (with a dose of humility and vulnerability).  All without disturbing the productive flow of things. It’s fun, takes no time and, even more importantly, is peer based, releasing me from having to be the traffic cop. Peers can easily police each other in a low risk and fun way. Anybody can do it and everybody does (Anybody, Anybody?)

Instead of a moment-of-truth which weakens our desired culture we have a moment-of-truth which strengthens our desired culture. Think about other similar approaches you can take to be Accentuating Short-Range Culture. Some things are so elegantly simple, they are almost embarrassingly so, which is why most people don’t do them. Will you?