Borrowing from Positive Corporate Culture to Build Strong Schools
By: Etienne R. LeGrand, CEO Vivify Performance
The reputation of America’s Best Loved Airline—better known as Southwest—was saved by its strong culture following an engine failure on April 17, 2018 on flight 1380 from New York to Dallas. In a CBS News interview, the crew of flight 1380 attributed their success in safely landing the plane to their shared values. Southwest’s Servant Heart, one of its values, was evidenced in the behaviors of all employees from pilot Captain Tammie Shultz as she spoke to passengers to CEO Gary Kelly in his heartfelt message, once the plane was safely landed. This powerfully illustrates how an organization’s culture can come alive when people “walk” and “talk” their values.
Bain & Company, another company with a high performance culture, was voted the 2019 #1 Best Place to Work by its employees based on Glassdoor Surveys. Bain employees cite strong leadership, a great culture with friendly co-workers and their company’s benefits package as reasons it’s a great place to work.
Now, I know many of you are thinking that these examples from the world of private enterprise have little to do with public education. On the other hand some of you may also be haunted by previous attempts to integrate business practices into our public education system, such as a relentless focus on data collection that produced mixed results and left a sour taste in the mouth of many educators.
Even with these concerns, we must recognize that our education system is comprised of organizations filled with people—just like corporations are. Corporations and education organizations hire people to perform various roles in exchange for financial compensation and benefits. But this “hygiene factor”, a type of extrinsic motivation, is not the only factor that can motivate human beings to perform to their fullest potential, and motivation research finds that financial compensation alone is insufficient to truly motivate and engage employees.
People have a desire to do something meaningful, to contribute to a greater cause and to be a part of something larger than themselves. Education embodies this higher-order purpose. This offers leaders across the education ecosystem a powerful source of intrinsic motivation they can tap to inspire and get more from their employees. And heightened performance from employees can foster a heightened performance out of students.
Google Gets It
I’d argue that enabling kids to learn and thrive is a more meaningful reason to go to work than organizing the world’s information to make it universally accessible, which is Google’s mission. At least it ought to be! But Google’s leaders and managers are way ahead of their counterparts in education, because they are consistently inspiring and engaging their employees, making the company one of the best companies to work for and one of world’s most recognized brands.
Successful leaders and managers understand that they need the people in their companies “on their side” if they are to accomplish great things. And they know it’s in their personal interest, and the organization’s interest, to “take their people with them” as they pursue their goals, especially since people are often the largest cost center. Leaving any group of employees behind leads to employee turnover, lost productivity and energy, which reduces the likelihood leaders can attain their goals.
Successful leaders rally their teammates around “the why” they come to work each day. They) prioritize establishing meaningful, caring and trusting relationships with employees and through their behavior demonstrate concern about their employees’ personal growth and development.
Our public education system can learn a thing or two from Southwest Airlines, Bain & Company and Google, whose leaders have established high-performance cultures that make them places where people want to work. Gary Kelleher, Southwest Airlines co-founder and chair emeritus, once famously said that “business is a people business.” If business is a people business, education has to be people business, too.
Let me know what you’re doing to establish a great culture in your school district. If you’re stuck, let me know that, too—I’d be more than happy to partner with you to take your district to the next level!