Audience: Coaches, Consultants, Owners, Senior Leaders, Managers
Overview: We all have bias but how often do we step back to see how it is affecting our business?
By: Cynthia Kyriazis, Chief Experience Officer, The Culture Think Tank
I had an interesting experience the other day with someone who was curious to learn more about our Culture 5 Assessment…and it left me shaking my head.
I’m sharing it here because I feel it’s a lesson for any of us who work towards trying to create or build a business, team, organization or culture.
This woman was the friend of a previous client, and although she had a mature business, she seemed to be struggling when it came to growing it. I contacted her and set up a call to discuss her business goals and concerns and she ultimately ended up in tears because of her concern for her business.
So I asked if she’d like to see a demonstration of our product to see if it could be a way to expand her offerings.
We set up a demonstration and as we went along each section of the assessment, she seemed to like it. Then, slowly, she started saying, ‘My clients would never do this’ or ‘I know my clients and they aren’t ever going to respond to this’ or ‘It won’t work.’
I gently suggested that perhaps she could consider the idea of taking the beginning steps of engaging in a conversation about what was working and what wasn’t in a client’s culture.
Just a sort of exploratory activity to see if it made sense to continue to dive deeper into something she could offer -- a cultural assessment. She didn’t think this was a good idea because she knew they wouldn’t want to discuss it and would ultimately turn her down.
I then began watching her shake her head at every metric I was sharing.
‘No. Wouldn’t happen. Never going to happen!’ I finally asked if she had ever had this type of discussion before or if that conversation had met a negative response.
The answer was ‘no,’ but she just knew her clients and she knew what her clients would and would not do. They were professional services firms and she had worked with several clients in this vertical.
By process of elimination, I realized it couldn’t be the…
Launch of the assessment: We provide all the email templates necessary to share with staff
Complexity of the assessment: It is 5 questions
Time it took to answer the questions: Less than 5 minutes
Questioning of the results: We conduct 3,600 algorithmic calculations per respondent
Lack of value: Leaders walk out with an Action Plan for the next 30 days
Lack of a coach to interpret results and help prepare the Action Plan: SHE could be that coach!
I came to the same conclusion you may have come to at this point.
Bias. Opinion. Pre-disposition.
It was evident throughout my conversation it was costing her dearly; remember, she wanted to grow her business!
I tried to open a potential discussion around this topic without any luck. She didn’t see it or recognize it within herself and that wasn’t changing any time soon. It made me sad to think about something that could help her and mostly her clients learn more about their culture to improve their performance and productivity. But it was not to be.
A few months passed and I had another coach with clients in the same vertical who came to the demonstration with an open mind. She was very successful in engaging her clients’ interests.
Don’t get me wrong. We all have biases, opinions and are pre-disposed to some things because of our own experiences...we are human.
The important lesson here is to try and be aware of these types of thoughts and sidestep them when we recognize them especially if you’re trying to grow yourself, your business or your organization’s culture.
But beware…they are subtle or unconscious and the price you pay can be devastating.
Cynthia Kyriazis is the Chief Experience Officer at The Culture Think Tank. Her experience includes executive coaching, meeting facilitation, consulting and training.