The Culture Engine

Chapter 9Hiring for Values Alignment

At this stage, if you've been putting the pieces of your organizational constitution in place in your department, you're seeing the benefits. Our clients typically enjoy greater workplace inspiration within six months of embedding the purpose, values, and behaviors embodied in an organizational constitution.

Players in your department—leaders and team members—enjoy better relationships, better performance, and better customer experiences. Proactive problem solving begins to happen more frequently.

Players start feeling the power of working with team members who have shared goals and common values.

At this stage, however, you may not have all players 100 percent aligned. You may be dealing with pockets of resistance or periodic exclamations of “This is harder than I thought” from leaders and team members. You may feel like it's two steps forward and one step back. You're making progress but you wish it were faster.

But you've got a critical mass going. It is hoped that you're seeing leaders and team members approaching the tipping point where there is significantly greater confidence in the organizational constitution and the direction the culture is going.

Take a breath and enjoy it, for a moment.

There.

Now, it is time to discuss proven ways to integrate new leaders and team members into your evolving department culture.

You put your desired culture at risk every time you hire someone. You put your culture at even greater risk every time ...