I’m sure you’ve experienced this phenomenon before. You sit with a leader in the HR department and are told about an amazing culture and set of values in the organization. You are excited and decide to sign up to become a member of that family. You arrive in your first week only to start noticing a completely different type of employees in the frontline. They are angry, bitter and cynical towards leadership. Your supervisors are no different – saying the right things in front of their line managers to uphold the culture reputation but terrible at leading people and culture.
This is what I call Multi Level Values. A terrible phenomenon in today’s organizations.
Multi level values occur when an organization has separate values at different management levels within the organization.
This occurs when the executive team holds a certain set of values, the mid-level managers live and govern by a different set of values and the Junior Level and front-line personnel live by another set of values.
How could this be possible in an organization?
My first experience of multi level values occurred when I first entered the workforce. I had a great meeting with a Director who spoke about the amazing culture of the organization. A few hours later, I finally had a chance to meet my direct supervisor who had a totally different view of the culture. A few days later, I met a few entry level staff members who showed me ‘how things are done around here.’
The same has also happened in organizations like Boeing, and Volkswagen. (Will share more later this week).
Perhaps this is a time to sit back and reflect. What can we do better with your culture? Where are you not getting it right? What are our people saying (Not what Mid-level managers are telling you)
Try skip level meetings. Be humble enough to listen to your people.
When trust is built, you’d be shocked what you’d hear.
