Dave Gartenberg on Culture & Organization Effectiveness

Culture is the engine that drives our momentum. It is the sum of what we feel, believe, and do, shaping and defining our work's input and output. A culture is defined by the people who live and operate within it. When people come together in service of something greater, they retain their own unique personalities, passions, hopes, and dreams - it is their shared experiences, and constant interactions between themselves make up a culture.

Dave Gartenberg has been at the forefront of industry for over 30 years,  from economic analyst, teaching fellow, to various executive HR leaderships (including Chief People Officer) at companies like Microsoft, Avanade and Slalom. Where he has captained all aspects of human resource management, industrial relations policies, practices and operations. Dave provides perspective on organization effectiveness and culture transformation to accelerate innovation and optimize business performance.

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Transcript

Roy Sharples: 0:09

Why are you listening to this podcast? Are you a good friend and tuning in to spar your old pal on? Well, thank you if you are, are you an industry expert looking for insights? Or are you growing your career? You know, I created the unknown origins podcast series to have the most inspiring conversations with creative industry experts about entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion. Few can hold a candle to leading organizational transformation and culture curation that my guest today he has been at the forefront of industry for over 30 years from economic analyst, teaching fellow to Chief people officer across companies Microsoft of an odd slalom Roman Haas, the George Washington University and capital economics, where he has captained all aspects of human resource management, industrial relations, policies, practices, and operations, organization effectiveness, and culture transformation that accelerate innovation and optimize business performance. Welcome, Dave Gartenberg.

Dave Gartenberg: 1:20

Hey, thanks. Good to hear good to hear your voice. Again, Roy,

Roy Sharples: 1:23

what inspired and attracted you to the field of organizational effectiveness in the first place

Dave Gartenberg: 1:29

starts off with my first job after university, I was working at a consulting firm, I was an economic analyst. And it taught me how to code back in the days, it taught me how to do analytics I was doing, I was doing business intelligence bi before it was even even called that and doing it a very complex way because the tools weren't really helpful. And while I was quite good at that, I found myself noticing that how the organization I was working for was being run didn't feel right, I noticed we were what we call here in the states of burnin churn shop. So you'd hire an analyst, you'd crank as much work out as them as you can in two, three years, then they would turn over and you'd hire more and, and whatnot. And, and I just kept thinking like it took me it took an analyst a good year to kind of really get to be competent, or so year and a half. And then like, right, when people were getting good, they were leaving, and I just like God, there's got to be a better way. And then I noticed, you know, when I found out like, I found out I got a raise by noticing my paycheck was different, you got feedback by people, never from the people you worked with. But by hearing the rumor mill, someone popped their head and said, Hey, heard you did a great job, or Hey, I heard you really screwed up. And, you know, being you know, in my early 20s, I didn't know that, that that was wrong. It just felt like it could be done better. And so it put me on a little bit of a learning path. And, and so that that sparked the interest. And I thought about getting a Master's going back getting a master's in industrial organization psychology. At that point in time, you couldn't do anything at the Masters level. And I knew I certainly at that point in my life didn't have the maturity, the finances, the fortitude or the intellect to get a PhD. And so I thought I'd go get an MBA and researching MBA programs discovered one that was offering a new degree that offered a cot, an MBA with a concentration in organizational behavior and development. And it married that, you know, the concept of business acumen, along with you know, how to how to unleash individual and group potential inside organizations. And I just, I knew I knew that was absolutely my passion and where I wanted to focus the rest of my career.

Roy Sharples: 3:44

What does being an organizational effectiveness leader mean to you?

Dave Gartenberg: 3:50

Yeah, it's great. And I love that term, because you know, that it falls within the broader profession of human resources, or some might say personnel. And, and I try to distinguish the two because there is a point, you know, we're personnel, people in HR will focus on typically, the profession focuses on administrative things, right, how to just make sure organizations run, right, that people are getting paid, people are getting hired, people are excellent. And those are certainly important things. But you could think about it, as you know, going back to school, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, those are foundational things, they need to be done well, and if they're not done well, things go bad for companies. So I don't mean to diminish the importance of it. But that's not where my passion was an organization effectiveness leader or really a proper HR leader would focus more on how do they How do they How do they set an organization up to to realize its potential, right. And so I'm a big believer in systems thinking. And there's a number of models out there that but there's a great one by Jay Galbraith. That's called the Star model, right? It's got five dimensions to it, it talks about strategy structure, processes, rewards and people. And within that you've got levers as an organization, you get to pull. And most orgs never really think about it as a holistic in a holistic way, about aligning them in the direction you're trying to take the company, right, you just kind of set they make decisions in isolation. Or either, you know, only focus on cost reduction, or what not, and not thinking about what are the implications, the broader piece. And so I think a really good org effectiveness professional will go away and understand what the business is trying to do. And then align all those levers you have at your disposal to help give as much tell wins, and the direction that you're trying to go.

Roy Sharples: 5:51

Your point on systems thinking is one that stands out, and that by viewing systems from a broad perspective, to understand the holistic level of how structures, patterns and cycles, within systems all fit together, rather than just seeing the specific events or a polarized view of the system.

Dave Gartenberg: 6:14

Yeah, and it's funny because it's, it's it's neither new, nor actually that complex. And yet, I just I can't understand why. And it's not just something for effectiveness professionally, every leader should understand that every parent actually should understand that. It's like, it's a basic concept of just really around intentionality. And just understanding the different the different opportunities or, you know, keep using levers, but there's probably a better word but different variables in your equation, and being intentional about being thoughtful about how you want to set that up, to be to be helpful in what you're trying to get as an outcome. And it's so missed in modern day culture for for whatever reason,

Roy Sharples: 6:58

culture is the engine that drives our momentum, it is the sum of what you feel, believe and do, and can include stories that shape and define your works input and output. A culture is defined by the people who live and operate within it. And the same demographic, two cultures, for example, created simultaneously pursuing the same ideals will still become two very different entities. I think of cities like Liverpool and Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and my friends from all four of those cities will hate me for saying this. But they are almost joined on to one another, you know, Liverpool, to Manchester, Glasgow, to Edinburgh. But yet, the cultures are so different and unique in most dimensions, especially in terms of how they speak, and their dialect, their language. Anyway, why is this is because people are different. When people come together in service of something greater. they retain their own unique personalities, passions, hopes and dreams. And the shared experiences and constant interactions between people make up a culture. What's your approach to curating a culture in terms of driving positive organizational effectiveness?

Dave Gartenberg: 8:15

Yeah, that's it? That's a great question. And and the answer will differ upon, you know which company you're at. Having led HR for a couple different companies that needed different things out of its culture. But But that being said, there is kind of a common playbook. And again, it keeps going back to that foundation of kind of a systems approach a holistic approach. But if I think of some of the strong levers that you want to think about, I think leadership is key, right? I think one of the biggest failings in many companies is you see people talk about what they want their culture. And yet when you see what their senior leadership do and how they act and behave, it really it does really start at the top. One of the there's a really wonderful PowerPoint that file or PDF that floats around the internet. It's probably it's probably a good 15 years old or so that really was informative to me on how I thought about creating cultures unleashing potential of Oregon individuals and organizations, it's referred to as the Netflix culture deck. And they did a there's been a couple iterations of it over time, but I'll use my words, which won't will will an artfully describe it but but one of the things I really loved about the ethos of what they were doing at Netflix back in the early 2000s, is rather than design a company to prevent the point, oh, 1% of the people from doing bad things. They decided to design a company that would that would accept that risk that sometimes people will do bad things intentionally or unintentionally, but they were going to optimize for how to unleash the 99.99% of the people that just want to show up and do great work for the clients and and each other. And I just thought that was such a powerful reframing and when you start Think about it that versus all the processes you put in place to make sure mistakes don't occur and things like that, it really starts to be it really starts to reframe how you think about these things. And then you know, and then you can start to think through. Okay, so what are the leadership behaviors we need around that? What are the, you know, what are the things we're going to do to set our people up? What are the behaviors, we need? Those middle managers? Right, they can either be a headwind on a culture or a talent. And, you know, what's the level of trust in the culture? Is it safe to make a mistake? One of the things, one of the stories I love from a leader I supported earlier in my career, was he, he was part of a major project where they were shipping a product. And he made a mistake that actually had the product going to the wrong location. And it costs it cost the company $25 million to fix it. And it was clearly a mistake he was responsible for, he went to a CEO, and, and basically just said, here's my resignation, at 25 million was a lot to this company. And he said to the CEO, said, Hey, here's, here's the mistake, here's what I did to fix it, but it did cost us 25 million. And here's my resignation. And the CEO, you know, thought for a moment said, and why would I fire you? I said, I just invested 25 million in your development, I'm pretty sure you're not going to make that mistake again. In how many you know, how many companies would actually pull that out? How many CEOs would would do something like that? Not a lot. And you think about it? Is it okay to fail? If it's if it's a look, that's a teachable moment, and wasn't done out of arrogance, or ignorance or rushing? Right. And so, all those moments I, you know, for culture, there are, there are lots of levers that impacted but I keep going back to its behaviors, and it starts at the top that really starts to, to let that happen. And then everything flows from there.

Roy Sharples: 11:54

Based on your experience to date, they've, what are the key skills needed to be an organizational effectiveness leader?

Dave Gartenberg: 12:03

Yeah, I mean, there's a few things. You know, it starts with business acumen, right, even though you're not responsible for the business. I think it's so important for everybody in in all staff groups, but certainly some people in the HR and org effectiveness space, to make sure that that they understand what the business is trying to achieve, and not just put, you know, a blind playbook in place, that, that that they, you know, that they would do at any company, right. So understand the business strategy. Second, again, going back not not to be a broken record, but I'd go back to systems thinking is a critical component of that. And then I'd also call about change management. Right? It's, it's really, you know, I've seen a lot of people who are great at putting a wonderful plan up on the board. And it is the right one, but it's like, how do you how do you take something from theory? And how do you operationalize it? How do you know, how do you change an organization, when when there's the tension of delivering on the business today, that's going to dominate people's mind, stare, and focus. And so if you can, if you can make sure if there's as much art as science to that in trying to implement the change in all the while the plane is gliding through the air. And then the other part is around what I would call a future orientation A lot of times people are designing for today. And to use an overused kind of sports analogy, you kind of have to go to where the puck is going. Right? And thinking about what is it in the future, because if you're designing for that today, by the time you light it up, you're already out of you're already kind of behind, again. And so I think those are those are the dimensions of it, that I think, you know, I think from there, there's a whole bunch of other set of skills around, you know, EQ and other things, I think, you know, would go in there, but, but I'd focus on those as the core bits that I'd encourage anyone thinking to do this to, to build as much muscle as they could around.

Roy Sharples: 14:11

So you've been a time machine, Dave, and you're going backward, based on your lessons learned to date, in terms of the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to success? What would you say to a younger Dave?

Dave Gartenberg: 14:25

That's great. I mean, I'll make this personal to me, but most of it will, would be relative to a lot of folks but first part, I would say is Believe in yourself. Right? I spent a lot of my youth being pretty insecure and lack the confidence. I think I did, I probably should have had in myself. I had mentors who had way more confidence in me that I had in myself and people who put me in big jobs I never thought I deserved or would have ever put my name forward for In fact, when Roy when you and I first met in the UK, I was Someone I didn't apply for that job, people asked me to take that job. And I actually said no, thinking that it was too big, it was too much risk. I didn't know what I was doing. But you know, you find your way out. So I think for a lot of people, and I think about the people I mentor, especially, especially a lot of the women I mentor, they don't have it, but it's again, it goes across genders, ethnicities, everything, believe in yourself, right? Second, would be the importance of listening over speaking, something my dad taught me growing up is, you know, you've got two ears in one mouth, and you're supposed to use it in that proportion. And I think early in my career, I was so eager to prove myself smart and impactful that I spent more time talking and trying to convince an influence, when really I should just have been listening. Right, and just be more curious. And really understand. I think I think those are, those are good things. And then I would also say mistakes are the fuel for growth. I spent a lot of early part of my career, trying to avoid mistakes versus, you know, I was so worried about what other people thought and that it just it was wasted energy. One of the things I love about the manifesto, you've you've written ROI is you know, ignore, you know, ignore, basically ignore the ridicule, right? That, you know, it's it's wasted energy, if you know what's right, you need to go for it. And don't worry about what what other people what other people think I think of, you know, I'm a big believer in quotes. And, you know, I love the one by Winston Churchill, that success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. And when you're worried about what other people are thinking, you know, that that's not there. If you see, you know, of course, you want more wins than failures. But I look back, you know, the professional I am today was probably more formed by what went wrong than actually what went right. And, and those were just immensely immensely helpful things. In the last piece, I would tell myself, you know, around that, again, I'll go back to a quote by a famous sports player and coach in US basketball, named Phil Jackson, he wrote a wonderful book called sacred hoops. It's a wonderful book about, about management, it's about leadership. It's a wonderful book about basketball, if you like that, too, and he he coached Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal and a few other folks to championships. And what but many people don't know is he's a, he's a deadhead. He's a big follower of the Grateful Dead. And he's also kind of a very Zen kind of Buddhist gentleman, in his belief, and it goes to Coco's in zen, it is said that the gap between accepting things the way they are, and wishing them to be otherwise, is the 10th of an inch of difference between heaven and hell. If we can accept whatever hand we've been dealt, no matter how unwelcome, the way to proceed eventually becomes clear. That is what is meant by right action, the capacity to observe what is happening and act appropriately, without just being distracted by self centered thoughts. If we rage and resist or angry, fearful minds have trouble quieting down sufficiently to allow us to act in the most beneficial way for ourselves and others. In that was an issue for me growing up, it's like how to not react, and just kind of accept, you know, rather than then bitch and moan about something, how do you just accept understand the landscape somewhat dispassionately, even though it might be a very emotive topic for you? And understand, okay, so these are the cards that have How do I best play them rather than complain about the cards you have? Once I clicked on that in my in my mid 30s, oh, my God, my life just in my you know, my happiness, my joy, my impact as a profession, as you know, my relationships. Personally, everything just got so much better. I would love to have known that at 18.

Roy Sharples: 19:06

Navigating into the future. What's your vision for the future of organizational cultures? And where do you see the role of creativity play its role with an organizational design and effectiveness?

Dave Gartenberg: 19:21

Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, normally, you know, I think it's unclear you know, I you know, it depending on the day you asked me, I can either be glass half, half empty or half full on this. But, you know, as we're taping this, we're in the middle of a pandemic, and it is an awful thing for the world in many dimensions, and I'm looking forward to the medical relief to help prevent and cure cure us from this to allow people to revert back to a previous life. But, but my hope is that life doesn't, doesn't revert exactly and so you and I have previously talked about it is The pandemic and this kind of Black Swan event has caused us to step back and challenge some of the basic assumptions by which we we've managed life and certainly work life. The ability to, to not necessarily always have to be face to face from a work perspective, and, you know, I think it's cementing in that concept of a gig economy that, you know, is, is in the middle of trying to figure out, you know, you see a lot of governments trying to regulate whether or not gig workers, you know, deserve benefits or not, are they employees, are they not employees, and I think there's a lot of things that are starting to unfold, that will have implications about about how to run organizations. And as we start to think about it, I think it's going to start bringing to the forefront, you're starting to see sort of leaders that are paying attention to this more now than they have historically, the importance of, you know, especially now we think about becoming truly global. And not necessarily having workers with the same employment relationships, but you still need them invested in the mission of the company and willing to use their discretionary time when you need them. And how to find that. And I think as companies try to work through the complexity of these new business models, the people are very quickly starting to understand it's not just the compensation issue, right? There's a number of dimensions that that they need to think through. So I think the concept of people working culture become more important as we go forward, I think, I think it becomes a competitive advantage for the companies that are executing on it, right, that have very similar business models, and yet you see some thriving and others not. And it's not always because there was a first mover advantage. And so I think the dimensions of which, you know, I don't think the basic concepts will change underlying it. I think something like systems thinking and other tools have been around for decades, right. But I think you'll start to see them come a bit more to the forefront, I think you'll start to see the companies that pay attention to actively managing their culture, seeing, you know, it shouldn't be the job, when you stop seeing the seat, the CH rows or the chief people officer as being responsible for culture, and seeing the CEOs own it, then you'll know, you know, that's a company I would, you know, it's not the sole criteria doesn't guarantee success, but it's a condition for if you're going to have success, and you know, seeing their chief people officer at their side, you know, advising them on how to, you know how to really drive it in a really effective way.

Roy Sharples: 22:39

The gig economy is an is an intriguing model, where people can have multiple gigs at the same time, and a part time or full time capacity with a single company on short term temporary or independent for one employer or a variety of employers at the same time. This drives the need for being a true expert in your craft, and ultimately helps minimize the hindrances, barriers and toxicity that can get in the way of making the work happen. Especially being that many organizations are still glued to the past on how they are organized in classic slow and functional and operational areas. And really designed for mass produced, manufactured one font one size fits all Industrial Age, businesses, Van the need to be agile and adaptive to the to the modern age, business, and how and really enabling how work gets done high performing teams are usually self organizing. The performance emerges from the experts joint actions within the project, who shared a shared vision that they commit to the purpose and the mission to expedite expedite at hand. Similarly, the most innovative teams mobilize themselves in response to unexpected changes. They don't need a leader to tell them what to do and how people who have the expertise and passion will step up at the right time in the creative process to lead and drive completion of their respective inputs and add value to the team on solution. And therefore the creative atmosphere cultivate it is critical and that provides the autonomy and space and it needs to be liberal, inclusive and meritocratic, yet entirely focused and motivated to expedite the mission at hand. And this helps eradicate things like hierarchy. Politics, prejudice, hungers on are not permitted or tolerated. The Navy SEALs and the British Special Air Service are forged by adversity, endurance and sacrifice and are key in cutting out some of the most dangerous combat and reconnaissance missions and the they operate with agility in a decentralized Command model, where everyone is expected to lead and to be led shunning old hierarchies with their bad habits and lazy complacency and replace replacing them with modern thinking, agility networks and ecosystems have truly empowered teams, which improve engagement and retention, and can achieve extraordinary results in the pursuit to make the impossible possible to talk about the importance and power of of what this space provides. I think is is something I mean I do a lot of mentoring of people early in the career I go guest lecturer at universities on this because I want people to see the power that that that that this function can have an organization's and it's just missed. I mean, you go look up in the UK, it's the cipd in the US it's it's Sherm Society of Human Resource Management, go look at go look, any every third or fourth monthly magazine article will be about how to get a seat at the table, right how to be relevant, right? And it's, in people are just thinking about this wrong. It's, they need to just kind of just, if people thought about this in a little bit more comprehensive way. There's such a, I mean, it's such a business's need but but this is and I'm just so passionate about trying to uplevel people's understanding and capability around it. So I will talk endlessly about this, if given the opportunity. For more inspirational conversations with creative industry experts about entrepreneurship, pop culture, music, film and fashion go to unknown origins.com. Until next time, cheerio for now.