Culture Is Killing Your Team’s Productivity

In this insightful interview, Dr. Sharon Grossman explores the critical role of culture in productivity, the importance of intentional habits, and practical strategies for leaders to foster a high-performing, engaged workforce. Discover how small daily deposits can transform organizational culture and drive long-term success.

Dr. Sharon Grossman argues that no productivity system can save a team trapped in a toxic culture. In this episode, we unpack her BAR framework – Belonging, Achievement, Relevance – and turn it into concrete plays leaders can run next Monday.

Guest Links

• Website: http://turnkeyretention.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharongrossman/
• Amazon: https://amazon.com/author/sharongrossman
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Takeaways

·         The impact of culture on productivity

·         The BAR method for a positive work environmen

·         The importance of recognition and belonging

·         Strategies to measure and improve team mood

·         The role of intentional habits in culture building

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Connect with me:

• Website: santiagotacoronte.com
• LinkedIn: Santiago Tacoronte

Have questions or suggestions? Email us at info@santiagotacoronte.com

Connect with the host:
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/santiago-tacoronte/
• https://santiagotacoronte.com/

Transcript

1:29

Dr. Sharon Grossman, welcome to Productivitree! Thank you so much for having me Santiago, I'm excited to be here. You say culture can cancel out individual productivity. What is the most painful example you have seen of that in a company? Well, if you think about what productivity comes from, mean, yeah, I think in this day and age, we're thinking a lot about AI, but... AI can't do everything. And so when we're taking AI out of the picture for just a minute, what's left is people. And if you have a toxic culture, or even if it's not actively toxic, but it's just a culture that neglects its people, and it's really easy to do, then it affects how people feel on the job. I think all of us can relate to a situation where we were at work. and we either had a manager that made us feel uncomfortable or we had conflicts with coworkers or something about the culture of the place where we were working wasn't really feeding us. And what happens when we feel that way is it affects our productivity, right? And what we know on the flip side is that when people feel good at work, when they're happy, then their productivity flows. It's just kind of common sense. And so that's why I focus so much on culture, not only for productivity sake, but also because it then affects your bottom line, right? It affects whether people actually stay at the job or if it becomes a revolving door. When you walk into a new client, what are the first two or three signals you gauge to tell you if it's a cultural problem or is a different thing? Well, you want to see what kinds of habits they have in place or systems, right? So most places I can tell you, they mean well, but if you don't have a system or habit in place, then what you mean to do probably doesn't happen very often if at all. So it's kind of like if you decided that, you know, I'm going to make my New Year's resolution, I'm going to lead a healthy life. It's a great intention, but how many of us actually don't do it because we don't have a plan for it, right? And the plan isn't like just sign up for the gym because we know how many people sign up for the gym and never go. So you have to sign up for the gym and say, I'm gonna go on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after work from like five to six. That's very specific and then actually follow it, right? And I feel like if we think about what makes a productive culture. what makes a culture of retention, then we can isolate specific habits that we need to have in our culture, which will, you know, we have to actually be consistent in doing that's what that's the difference between a behavior and habit, right? A behavior is something I can do once a habit is something I do consistently. So this is all about consistency. What's a belief about productivity you see in leaders that sounds smart, but it actually damages their teams? I think, so I talk about the difference between, so back up, I'll say every interaction between a manager and their team is a financial transaction. you're either making deposits or withdrawals. So deposits are basically where you're making people feel seen, like they matter. You're taking notice of things that they're doing, you're recognizing them. So it's being very active as opposed to passive about these things. Withdrawals is when you, on the one hand, take the opposite approach. where, and this is what we're talking about, toxic leaders, right, is we'll often hear how they are outright negative or they just be very critical. You know, it's like in any relationship, if you're constantly being in conflict with someone and you don't feel appreciated, then that's a withdrawal. And the thing that I think a lot of leaders believe is that they're neutral. You know, I'm not actively doing this, but I'm not actively doing that either. So I'm kind of in the middle and it's like, the truth of the matter is neutrality doesn't exist. Because if you're not actively making deposits, that in and of itself is a withdrawal. interesting. You have a method, the bar method, which I assume is not going for drinks. So can you tell us what is bar and what it stands for and how does it work? Yeah, so I talk a lot about how people feel at work. And while that might sound like touchy feely and actually not that important to decision makers, what we know and what we've said so far is that if you're a human and you have feelings, those feelings are gonna affect your decision of how much you put into your job, AKA your productivity, and whether you stay or go. And what we also know is that when people aren't productive or when there's that constant turnover, it costs companies a lot of money. So we really want to pay attention to the kind of feelings we're creating via our culture. And so BAR stands for the three things that people want to feel on the job. They want to feel a sense of belonging. So that means that you need to be very intentional about how to create the kind of experiences at work that make people feel like they belong here. And we do that in one way by having a 15 minute daily huddle. So every leader would bring their team together and it's a time at the beginning of every shift where they're connecting. And if you're doing that on the daily, it creates a sense of belonging. As for achievement, everybody today, as you know, gets a sense of pride when they've achieved something. And I think a lot of times people actually leave the job because they feel like they've reached a ceiling, there's nowhere else for them to go. So I think employers have to be very intentional about what is the path that we're offering for people. Are we creating a career trajectory for people that when they've reached some sort of a ceiling that we have somewhere else that we can train them up and... maybe push them into a leadership role or help them transition into something else. Like if we're not thinking ahead, then their achievement's gonna get capped at some point. So we wanna always provide people with a challenge and with additional opportunities. And then R is for a sense of relevance. So you wanna know that what you are doing matters, right? And that's where... recognition is really important as part of your culture. And when I was talking before about deposits and withdrawals, I think that if you are not actively recognizing your people on the regular, and I don't mean just like, hey, great job, Santiago, because I mean, that might be okay, but it's not great. know, better would be, Santiago, I really noticed how yesterday you took the time with that customer. and you were very proactive about helping them figure out a solution. And that's what makes people keep coming back and remaining loyal customers with their company and really appreciate you doing that. So in other words, what you're saying is you're giving a concrete example of something that they did and why it mattered. If you are doing that every day, not necessarily recognizing every person every day, but recognizing somebody on your team every day. other people are listening to this. And then we also recommend that you allow for people to recognize one another. So it's not just the leader kind of like top down on recognizing oh one person on my team, but also allowing if we're colleagues to say like, hey, anybody want to recognize, you know, one of your peers and I could say, yeah, you know, Santiago, like you and I work together and you really. helped me out yesterday, I was kind of struggling and you stepped up and I really appreciate you doing that, I felt really supported. So now we've got a culture of recognition and that creates that sense of relevance. So in other words, we've got belonging, achievement and relevance and it's a great way, as I like to say, to raise the bar at work in terms of your culture. Sharon, have post-COVID, there's been a work change fundamentally. COVID changed the way we work for many of us. And since then, there's been also a lot of different things that have impacted work like AI and many other things. Do you think we are going through a belonging crisis in modern work? I think we're going through that in and outside of work. What we know is there's so much isolation, so much loneliness. The more we get into technology, which is fantastic, right? It does so much for us and it gives us so many opportunities at such speed. it really is a blessing in some ways. I think if we're not intentional about how to balance that out, we fall into this trap of just kind of feeling isolated with our devices. So I think uh there's that. We already know that this new generation that's coming up right now is having a lot of issues in terms of communication because they're so used to... just that like instant gratification of I text somebody and they instantly text me back or you know, it's very superficial, it's very instant and it doesn't represent the real world. We need to know how to have conversations, we need to know how to reach out to people, we need to initiate, whether that's inside or outside of work and so I think that we have to be intentional about that. What I'm teaching is about how to be intentional about that. in your organization by creating that kind of a culture. But I think our individuals, I think we all need to be very intentional about how to connect with other people so that we're not isolated, that we're not so lonely. Because as humans, I think that's our, that's the thing that charges our battery is being with other humans. And I don't mean just like sheer number, but quality relationships. And if you, you know, I know you feel a lot on productivity. if you ask anybody who's lived a full life, you know, at the end of their life, what do they regret the most? It's not that they weren't more productive, but it's that they didn't spend enough time on the relationships that were actually very meaningful to them. That's time you don't get back. Very true. I just want to make a tiny remark. Being productive, being truly productive will mean that you have more time to have those relationships that you need to have with other people. Listen, you talk a lot about transforming stress into success. What is an example of good stress, good stress in a healthy working culture? Yeah, I think we all have this very negative notion of stress. So when I do a keynote on what I call the stress advantage, I'll start by asking the audience, what do you think of the word stress? What comes to mind? And they'll say overwhelmed, frustrated, annoyed. Like there's just all these negative connotations. Like I can't sleep. I think what we're thinking about is when we're overly stressed, right? So we think of like the worst case scenario. What it turns out is that stress is on a continuum and it's almost like a, what do you call those? Not a bar graph, like the, you know what I'm talking about? Like the chart that goes, like, I forget what it's called. Well, what we know is that when stress, is very low. Performance is also very low. So you can think about Saturday morning when you don't really have to be anywhere. You're probably more likely to take your time, stay in bed, not really do much, right? And so it's not that it's bad or good. It's just that if you intend to relax, that's great. But if you intend to be productive, it's not so great. Right? And so we need a little bit of stress to put the pressure on to kind of challenge us. And that's what work does, right? Is it says, you got to be here at eight o'clock in the morning. If you're late, you know, there's consequences. And so that in and of itself creates a little bit of stress. And then there's expectations from your boss to do something by a certain deadline, to do a good job and not. Crap job. So I think that all of these things put some pressure on us and the more pressure we have to a point the more focused our mind can get, know, deadlines put that focus on us or specific things that we're working on. Like if we have clarity about what we're working on and what's expected and how to do it and all these things, then we're able to be productive. But it gets to a point where If you pass what we call the hump, which is kind of like the midpoint of that graph, then it means that the stress is too much. what I mean by stress, by definition, is essentially when your demands exceed your resources, or at least that's how you perceive it. Okay, so now you want me to get the same job done, but instead of it being over the course of a week, you want it done in 48 hours. That's a higher demand and lower resources. Now I'm feeling extremely stressed out. And now the more stressed out I get after that hump point, the lower my ability to actually perform. So we start to see a decline in performance, the higher stress gets. So back to your question about the stress advantage, if we're looking at the first half of that graph, before the hump, So a little bit higher than like when stress is really low, but when it gets to like a moderate level and between that point and the hump point, that is the point where you get to optimal performance. And so I think rather than thinking of stress as just one thing, we need to think of stress as stress that is good for us and stress that is bad for us. stress that motivates us and gets us to optimal performance and stress that is too much for us and breaks us down. And so we have to think of it as like where on the spectrum am I? And it's the same thing like when we go to the gym, you know, we are putting stress on our muscles when we're lifting weights. We do this on purpose because we know it is good for us because those muscles actually grow. But we also know If you barely put any weights on, you're not gonna get much of a result. And if you put too much weight, you're not gonna be able to lift it or you're gonna injure yourself. And we have lots of examples like that. So I think stress can be actually very beneficial. We just have to know what our limits are. So that takes a little bit of self-awareness. And when we've crossed the line, because I spent a lot of time coaching burned out executives, I think they're just so used to that go, go, go mentality and pushing themselves so hard and being externally focused and like what everybody else wants of them, that they're not paying attention to where they are on that curve. And now they're on the other side and that's where things start to break down. So you have to be very aware of where you are and also what to do about it. So if I've noticed that I've crossed that line, I have to have some actual strategies to bring myself back so that I can get back into that optimal zone. You mentioned executives. What do you think is the biggest gap between how executives describe their culture and how actually employees live it? Well, it really depends which executive you're referring to because a lot of executives have pressure on them from the culture from somebody even higher up, right? So there's that. And then I think a lot of times what we see is there's a disconnect between what executives are focused on and what employees are experiencing because there's the middle manager in the middle. And so many organizations have absolutely no what's going on in terms of their management. This is the biggest mistake I see is we take, this happens all the time. I think the more than 60 % of managers are people who got promoted from the frontline. So Santiago, you're really good at what you're doing. You're such a high performer. Let's promote you to a manager. So now we've given you a promotion and you're like, this is great. It's like another feather in my cap. So you say yes, because you want the title, you want the raise, but you've never done this before. And by the way, I'm not training you on how to do it. I'm just like, okay, Santiago is the new manager. Go. This is what happens all the time. And so you're just like, I don't know how to do this. I know how to do the work. Now I've got other people who need to do the work. I need to let go of the work, which is the thing I actually enjoy doing. and do a thing that I don't really know how to do and maybe I don't even like, which is telling other people how to do the job that I'm actually good at doing, right? So this happens all the time and the executives are not aware of how good of a manager you actually are. And what happens is if you've got multiple managers in different departments and what have you, you're gonna have a complete variety of management styles. And if you're talking about consistency across your culture, that's kind of unacceptable because now if I'm an executive and I want to have a certain culture in my organization, I have no control because you're going to do it one way and Maria is going to do it another way. you know, Patrick is going to do it his way. And then there is no consistency. So one of the things that I do to close that gap is I actually teach them a system where they are having to create certain habits and follow those on the daily, which creates those things that we talked about earlier. It, it creates that belonging achievement and relevance. It puts those deposits into your team every day. And now we've got consensus say across the culture. And if you're an inexperienced manager, you don't have to figure it out. basically giving you a cheat sheet. I just do this every day and then you just follow along and then you create a great culture. It's consistent across the organization and it's a win-win. What is one of these deposits that you mentioned? That is low cost habit that leaders can implement tomorrow. And it's measurable and it boosts performance. Yeah, so we talk about five habits. So the first one is a huddle. So you wanna bring your team together. We talked about that earlier where it creates that sense of belonging because it's that check in with your team every day. It's not a meeting. Everybody's standing, usually around a board and they're checking in with the team, the leaders, the managers. So that's a deposit because if you're bringing everybody together, and you're checking in with them, people feel like they belong there, that they matter. The second habit is appreciating your people. So we've already talked about recognition and what that looks like. So recognizing somebody for something specific that they did, telling them why that mattered, and then encouraging the team to recognize one another. The third habit, we call it a barometer. So you wanna check on how people are feeling. So every day we'll give them a QR code, they scan it. and it asks them to just click on a smiley face, a neutral face, or a frowny face. It takes them 30 seconds and it gives the leader real-time data on how the team is doing. It's anonymous, so if people feel like they don't want to call attention to themselves, nobody has to know who it is. They have the opportunity to share more if they like, but at least you know what's happening. And if you're tracking this over time, you get to see is the mood stable? Is it improving? Cause we've made some changes or is it getting worse? So once you have data, you can start to look into all these things very intentionally. The fourth habit is improvement opportunities. So those leaders in the huddle will ask every day, Santiago, assuming you're like my team, would say, what is something that you need in order to do an even better job? And then you're going to tell me, know, we're, you know, this is broken. This is missing. I'm really frustrated using this new technology. It's not working. It's buggy. Whatever it is, you're going to, you're going to give me some input and then I'm going to write it down. I'm going to go to my leader. I'm going to tell them, these are all the things that came up. We need to figure out like a plan, how to fix this. And then I need a report. I need to report back to the team. So then the next day I can come back and say, Hey, you know how you told me that you're having trouble with that tech stuff? Well, we're actually working on it. And next Thursday we have somebody coming in to do another training or whatever it is. Right. And then the fifth habit is tracking. So we use an app where all the data gets uploaded into it. And then we can actually start to run reports on the data. We can see. What is the mood of the team over time? What are the improvement opportunities that are being mentioned and how many of those are being fixed? We can see who's being recognized the most. So it'll actually generate a list of your top recognized person. That's the person maybe who becomes your employee of the week or employee of the month. And those are people that over time, let's say at the end of the year, you can look at that and say, hey, you we've got a leadership position opening up. this person might be really good for that because they're doing an excellent job. And now you've identified an opportunity for advancement, which as we said earlier, helps retain your people as well. So if you kind of look at the whole five things that I mentioned, you've got huddle, appreciation, barometer, improvement, and tracking, and that spells habit, which is exactly what it is. And that's what helps you make those deposits every single day into your team. What do you think then about the yearly company engagement surveys that companies still does once or twice a year? Do they work or is more like a thing we've been doing so we continue. So I will say this, nothing's black and white. I think doing something is always better than nothing. But if that's your entire strategy to tap into what's going on in your organization, then it's very lacking. And more than a survey, I think that what I see happen is they take their entire budget, development budget, and they'll bring everybody into like an annual retreat or some sort of a three-day training. and they're spending tens of thousands of dollars on that. And then what happens is people are, you know, they might be like very inspired. Maybe they bring in guest speakers or they do all kinds of stuff. And it's like, wow, that's amazing. They got lots of notes in their notebooks and they're excited to come back and implement what they learned. But they come back to the same environment. They've got the same crazy amount of emails coming in, the same number of meetings, the same pressures, the same tasks. And nobody's actually creating any sort of a system to encourage the implementation of your learning. And so if you're gonna do a one-off thing once a year, you're probably not gonna see a return on investment on that long term. And we also know that people forget 70 % of what they learn within 24 hours without reinforcement. So think about the last conference you attended, how much do you actually remember from that conference? And what have you done since to change your day-to-day operations that's actually moved the needle? Most of us would probably say very little. Sharon, in a time of short-termism where companies don't look beyond the next couple of quarters or year, where reorgs happen constantly and nobody is really safe for them from layoffs, for example, can a company be truly high performing if people feel disposable? Well, we already talked about how important it is for people to feel that sense of belonging and people feel disposable when they get a lot of withdrawals. So I would say absolutely not. can't have high productivity at least long term if you're not creating the kind of culture that creates deposits. Do you think that things like unlimited PTO, hybrid work, wellness perks, do they help bar? Do they help raise the bar? So I think I think they do make a big difference because One of the things I've been hearing a lot from employees when they talk about their experience at work is everybody wants flexibility and flexibility Take gives you that as close as we can get to what we call work-life balance, right? Because if I have kids and now the kid has to go to a doctor's appointment Or they've got a soccer game and I know that I can take time out in the middle of the day run to my appointment or run to the game and then come back and get back online and do my work. First of all, I can live my life. I can live a more holistic life where it's not just work, but it's work and family life. And it also makes me feel like my company trusts me that I'm going to come back. I think when we micromanage and we say, you can't do that, there's no flexibility, or you have to be in the office and we have to constantly see you, what's the message there? Is that we don't trust you. So think about that, it's kind of like if you were married to someone and they would never let you go out with your friends, they'd have to constantly be with you. I mean, what is the message there? like... You can't leave my side because I don't know what you're gonna do and I don't really trust that you're gonna do the right thing So I think we have to think rethink some of these things. I am that said While those things are great. I think a lot of places are doing them not all but if you want your organization to stand out It's not enough you have to do more and that's where the daily deposits make a big difference that really creates your competitive advantage. If people feel like all those things that we said, you know, that you've raised the bar. Even if you pay them less than your competitor, they're more likely to stay just because of how it makes them feel. I think companies need to be very intentional about what gives them that competitive advantage. Is it pay? Is it benefits? Or is it these things that maybe don't cost as much but require intention and effort on the daily? And you know, you could look at your own numbers, you could do a pilot. I often tell people do a 90 day Just do it for 90 days and see what the data show. You know, you don't have to believe me. You just have to try it and see for yourself. And then you can always go back to the way you did it before. But what we've seen is that when people do the pilot, they don't go back because it transforms not just their reputation as a company, but the experience of their employees, which then, as we said already, translates into higher productivity and higher retention. Sharon, when should em an employee stop trying to fix the culture from within and then decide that this place is not fixable and I need to go? I think it's very personal. Everybody has their own reason for staying or leaving. You could be in a very toxic culture and you'll see people stay. And sometimes it's because they don't like change, because they don't have somewhere else to go and they need the paycheck. But doesn't mean it's not eating them up. It doesn't mean they're not burning out. It doesn't mean that they bring home all of their negativity and taking it out on their spouse or on their kids. Like it definitely affects them. And it's not a long term plan. But I can't tell anybody whether to stay or go, I can only give them hope that, you if this is really bad, that this is not the end for them. know, make them realize that it's kind of like being in a, I know I keep going back to relationships, but like if you are in a bad relationship, maybe it's an abusive relationship, a lot of people stay. because they're scared to leave, but we also know that people leave and then they find a healthier relationship. you can't tell somebody what to do, but you can make them see, widen their horizon, make them see that there are other options available to them and then they have to make their own decision. Sharon, can we do five rapid fire questions? Let's go. Number one, what's one behavior that instantly tells you a culture is healthy? recognizing your people every day. Two, what is one behavior that instantly tells you a culture is unsafe? when somebody is either ignoring you in a meeting or using your ideas without credit. Number three, if leaders could only change one meeting habit, which one would improve performance the most? I think recognition. 4. What is one question you wish every employee asked their manager at least once a quarter? interesting from the employee standpoint. What can I do to improve specifically? I think a lot of places wait until the yearly review to give feedback. I don't recommend that. And so if you work somewhere like that, be proactive and ask for the feedback that you need. And number five, is one mindset shift that helped you personally avoid burnout while working on burnout? I think you have to be very intentional and I'll give an example. So I, this is pre-COVID, I was working as a therapist and I had uh an office. I specifically picked my office location. walking distance to the gym and then I would set my hours where I could take a long lunch break and go actually work out in the middle of the day because I knew when I left work at the end of the day there was no way I'm gonna have time or energy to go work out. had little kids at home, I had to commute and all this stuff. So I think just being intentional about how do you take care of yourself in a way that works with your schedule. and being really intentional about that really helps. Shannon, let's wrap this up. For leaders that are listening now, and they are trying to change the culture, and they've been trying, and they still have the intention to do it, what is the first step you think, or you will advise them to take in the next seven days to continue this or to elevate their efforts on changing the culture? I mean, I would love to know what they've tried already and also if they're being supported by their higher ups, right? So I think there needs to be a conversation. And I think one of the things that is very helpful is if you can approach the decision makers with data, if you could say, I think a lot of companies actually know that they have a turnover problem, but crazily enough, most of them don't really know how much it's costing them. So I would do some diligence work. would calculate how much your turnover rate is, what the average salary is, multiply that by 1.5. That gives you about how much you're spending a year on turnover. And then you can go to your decision maker and say, this is how much we're spending because people are leaving. I think that we can fix this. I found x-way solution. This is how much that's going to cost. This is what's going to entail. And then start a conversation from a research backed position, right? Where you're like, I'm showing data, this works, this doesn't work. What do you think? think when you start that conversation, you're more likely to get some buy-in. Sharon, how can our audience get in touch with you, avail your services, or get your books? You're a prolific writer with, I think, eight books? Yeah. So all of my books are available on Amazon, both in the States and in Europe, because I know you're based out of Switzerland. So go to your whatever your country's Amazon is. And if you put in Sharon Grossman, you'll be able to find it. I'm also on LinkedIn and my website is turnkeyretention.com or drsharongroesman.com. you know, I actually do keynotes also in Europe, not just in the States. So if you're having a conference and you want me to come and talk about employee retention, if you want executive coaching, or if you want consulting on how to keep your people, those are some of the best ways to reach me. and we will add your link in the notes of this. my book on employer retention. Don't buy their lunch, buy their loyalty. Amazing, Sharon, thank you so much for being with us. I'm taking away two things, two things, two key words I manage in my little brain to find a pattern, intentionality. Everything is about being intentional. And the second one is that good intentions don't work without a system. So you need a system to make sure that your good intentions end up being results and not just that, not intentions. Dr. Sharon Grossman, thank you so much for being with us today and wishing you all the best. Thank you, Santiago. You've wrapped it up beautifully. think those are the two best words to really drive home. So thanks for having me. Thank you.