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So to get us underway,
would you please give a warm welcome

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to corporate anthropologist,
Michael Henderson.

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(Applause) (Cheers)

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Thank you.


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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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So I just thought, to start off,
to make it very clear,

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when I was sitting,

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the smoke that appeared
behind me wasn't due to me.

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(Laughter)

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I'd hate to go down on my CV,
as the guy that did that on TED.

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I thought for a moment
they were running out of time

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and decided to cut speaker number one,

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"Gas him now!"

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Still glad to be here.

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I thought I'd start off with a story
my grandfather told me.

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This was many years ago,
about a worker in a Russian factory

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not long after the revolution,
in the new Soviet Union.

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At the end of every work day,

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the workers would leave the factory,

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go down to the gates of the factory,

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and be stopped by security guards

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they would be searched

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to ensure they weren't taking
any tools or any equipment,

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or even any of the motherland resources

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out of the factory.

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This one particular worker,
used to wheel a wheelbarrow with him,

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he'd carry his winter coat in there

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and perhaps a basket
to carry his lunch in.

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The security guards
everyday would stop him,

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search under the coat,
make sure it didn't have any tools in it,

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and this went on, day after day,
week after week, for years and years.

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And after four or five years,

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it was found that this particular worker
had skipped the Soviet Union.

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Apparently with a very large sum of money.

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Turned out, he'd been
stealing wheelbarrows.

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(Laughter)

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I suspect this happens a lot
with company culture.

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Company culture wheels in and out
of the building on a daily basis,

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but no one actually pays attention to it.

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And traditionally, that didn't really need
to be an issue in the last century.

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But I think, this century,

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it's something, we need to be
paying attention to in organisations,

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because people,

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even what we're doing today,
playing with ideas,

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have actually started to contribute
far more to organisations in that way,

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than perhaps they have ever before.

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And as an anthropologist,
I find that fascinating.

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So, the field of corporate anthropology,

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is literally the discovery
and the search for

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what is the nature of people
in organisations.

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I got into corporate anthropology
almost by mistake.

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I graduated from Auckland University
in anthropology,

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I highly recommend
their anthropological programs.

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And on graduation, the professor
gave me some very good advice,

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he said, "Two things I need
to let you know, Michael.

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Number one, congratulations, you will
never be bored for the rest of your life.

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You're an anthropologist,
we don't suffer boredom."

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"Second thing", he says,
"you're unemployable.

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Good luck with that."

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(Laughter)

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Turned out, he was right on both counts.

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Difficult to get a job when you say,

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"Hi, I'm an anthropologist,
where do I start?"

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So I took off to London,
as we Kiwis do and went on an OE,

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and decided that I'd better go
and get a "real job,"

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I think that's what my mother called it,

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joined an advertising group in London,

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and was selling advertising,

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in that particular market in the 80s.

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I'd been with the company
for about a month,

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and suddenly there was called
a "crisis meeting."

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I didn't know what it meant,
maybe the building was burning down.

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Turned out it was about financial figures
we weren't doing as well as we could be.

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This gentlemen came on stage,
a distinguished looking chap,

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and there was hundreds of us
brought together to sit at his feet.

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And he was introduced as the CEO.

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I didn't know much about business,
"CEO, what's that?"

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So I leant across to the person next to me
and said, "What's a CEO?"

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They said, "Well duh,
it's the Chief Executive Officer."

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And I just went, "Woah!"
because that first word,

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as an anthropologist,
captured me of course.

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(Laughter)

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So, I went, "Coo.l"

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I pulled out my little black notebook
and got my pen ready.

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Two things you should know,
anybody carrying a black notebook,

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is one of two things,
an anthropologist or a policeman.

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(Laughter)

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They both ask the same question,

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"So, what is it you're doing here?"

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Anthropologists do it
with a matter of inquiry.

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The police are
a little more threatening.

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I listen to this guy talk

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about how badly
the organisation was performing,

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how results hadn't been
how they should have been,

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that we needed to lift
our endeavors and our efforts,

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that times were tough.

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That we needed to pull together more
and make this thing happen.

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Now, the interesting thing
about his talk was,

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he didn't actually use the words,
but he made it very clear,

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it was our fault.

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(Laughter)

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I thought, "This is interesting."

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I'd been there for a month,
and it suddenly clicked,

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this guy didn't realise,
that he was head of a cult.

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Not a culture.

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Most businesses don't know
the distinction between those two,

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how that happens and what it delivers.

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I wrote that down and thought
"Wow, this is really interesting.

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He's got no idea."

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The difference being that in a cult,

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a leader sees greatness

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in themselves.

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In a culture,

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the leader sees greatness in ...

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the people, of course.

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It was interesting
even from his comments

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I realised he doesn't
realise he's set up a cult.

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So, a lot of the performance issues
he was blaming everyone else for,

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in fact, I believe, possibly,
was a reflection of his leadership style.

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So as a result of that, I took his money,
I did some selling, didn't do too well,

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I was too busy with my black notebook
and kept getting warnings,

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"The sales not right."

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I headed to South America
and Africa for a couple of years

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and went to study the cultures and tribes,

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that I was interested in
and had a passion for,

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to learn what they were doing
around culture and leadership.

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And one of the central revelations
of anthropology is, it's a little bizarre.

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You become an anthropologist because you
want to study other tribes and cultures,

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and a big number of you
putting your hands up

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saying you'd been there, done that.

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So, nice to be talking to an audience
full of fellow anthropologists.

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You go there to study other people

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and perhaps even reveal
who they truly are.

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In reality what happens is,
as you're studying them

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and spending time with them,
you reveal not who they are,

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but of course, who you are.

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You come face to face
with your own prejudices.

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It can be sexist, it can be political, 
it can be racist.

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That's not necessarily
a pleasant thing to experience.

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The more I looked at this,

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I suddenly realised that in fact,

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the lessons that are to be learnt
from traditional tribes and cultures,

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did not need to be shared with these,
they were already okay.

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It occured to me that the people
that needed these lessons

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on how to build cultures
and effective leadership,

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were in fact the tribe
I'd just left in London.

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That toxic cult environment.

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It occurred to me
in fact that organisations,

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are the modern tribes.

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I experienced that many of us spend
far more hours in our work place,

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or our education places,
here we are at the school,

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than potentially we do even in our
national culture or in our ethnic culture.

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And that perhaps, that's something
we should be paying attention to.

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Perhaps that's giving us some indication
as to what's going on in society

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and the way it has been going on.

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I looked at the history of organisations.

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Organisations have been
running the world for 400 years now.

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My question is, "How's it going?"

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Rhetorical question.

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So, I gathered all this, came back,

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got back to London,
thought, "Hmm," got another job

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and started to sit within organisations
and view them as a tribe.

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So as I said, started to see the CEO,
as the chief, executive officer.

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Let me explain what that means

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C, E, and O.

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The chief is head of culture,
the executive is head of structure,

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who's at what position,
with how much power,

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how much authority.

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And the officer, clearly military,
the delivery of strategy, if you like.

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I saw that the chief 
actually had three mandates of power,

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this is not a title or a position
within the business,

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it's the three things that the individuals
should be paying attention to.

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But my experience showed me that
they tended to favour two of those

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and delegate the other one
to a group called HR.

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Have you heard of this group, HR?

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(Audience) Yes.

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Human Resources.

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When you use the phrase "human resources"

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with a traditional tribe,
you can see them pull back a little bit.

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They don't like that phrase.

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It brings up bad memories for them,

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they have another word
associated with that;

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it's called slavery.

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What's intriguing is one of the lessons

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I believe organisations
can learn from traditional cultures is

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tribes don't do HR they do RH.

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In other words they resource humans
for an occupation,

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they don't have human resources.

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Think about that,

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it sounds like a clever
play on words, doesn't it?

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Just nod.

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It's actually more than that.

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It's a whole mentality.

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Yes. So resourcing humans,
where would you rather work?

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Somewhere that resources humans

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or somewhere that treats people
as human resources?

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I just wonder if there's some
opportunities for us to learn here.

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I'm often questioned,
people go "Yes, yes clever stuff,

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but is this the latest business trend?

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Is this what companies are doing
at the moment, looking at culture?"

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My response to that is clearly no.

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In fact I'd say, business is just
the latest cultural trend.

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Culture's been around, as long as humans
have been processing cognitive thought,

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and communing together on this planet.

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Business, in the forum that we,
currently, most of us, operate in,

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is barely 400 years old.

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So do you think,

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maybe there's some lessons
in traditional cultural experience,

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that we could draw on and engage from,

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within our organisations?

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I started to play with that,
share that with organisations,

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there's a couple of things,
some of those lessons we can take

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from traditional tribes
and apply within organisations,

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very simple, they're obvious
when you look at them.

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I guess that's one of the benefits
of being an anthropologist.

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Most people suffer from
a thing called "déjà vu,"

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have you heard that expression?

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You feel like you've been here before,
had this conversation,

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often accompanied with goosebumps,
hairs standing up,

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going, "Oh it's a bit freaky,"
been here before, had this conversation.

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Anthropologists don't suffer from that,
we suffer from "vuja' de'"

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that's actually the reverse,
we've been there 100 times,

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but this is like seeing it
for the first time.

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Every time I go into an organisation
I've been there before,

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but I always treat it
like a new experience,

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a new beginning, a fresh mind.

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Just as we've been asked
to clear our minds for this session.

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What are the lessons that
organisations could learn from tribes

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if they clear their minds
and see themselves for the first time?

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The big one, is a thing called engagement.

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Tribes are famous for doing two things
fundamentally: enabling their people,

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preparing the next generation
to be able to hunt,

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fish, make babies, build huts etc.

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And also engagement, which is making them
proud to be who they are.

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Finding their place to stand,
the Tūrangawaewae of the people,

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actually defining who you are
through historical text

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and stories and symbolism.

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Here's the intriguing thing:

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Global surveys around the world,
show that in engagement surveys

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on average, in most modern organisations,
20% of the people are engaged,

242
00:10:42,830 --> 00:10:46,319
80% are either sitting on the fence
or are clearly disengaged.

243
00:10:46,319 --> 00:10:48,328
What we mean by engaged,
is three things:

244
00:10:48,698 --> 00:10:50,946
they're willing to stay
with your organisation;

245
00:10:51,226 --> 00:10:55,245
to speak positively about the organisation
which given the social network forums

246
00:10:55,245 --> 00:10:58,140
that we have available to us nowadays,
crucial comment,

247
00:10:58,140 --> 00:11:01,393
you bad mouth your company
to millions of people on the Internet,

248
00:11:01,393 --> 00:11:04,103
it effects things like your reputation
and your brand etc;

249
00:11:04,103 --> 00:11:06,530
the other thing was to strive
for your organisation.

250
00:11:06,530 --> 00:11:09,607
Imagine if an organisation
has low levels of engagement,

251
00:11:09,607 --> 00:11:12,416
people aren't willing to stay,
to speak positively about it,

252
00:11:12,416 --> 00:11:13,961
or strive on behalf of it,

253
00:11:13,961 --> 00:11:16,010
what do you think that
does to productivity,

254
00:11:16,010 --> 00:11:18,411
customer service and job fulfilment?

255
00:11:19,331 --> 00:11:22,515
And yet all round the world,
we have 80% of the workers,

256
00:11:22,515 --> 00:11:27,393
and I'm talking about millions of people,
are not fully engaged in the work they do.

257
00:11:28,143 --> 00:11:30,713
Those numbers may sound familiar
if you're in business,

258
00:11:30,713 --> 00:11:32,753
have you heard of 20-80,
the Pareto theory?

259
00:11:33,533 --> 00:11:37,331
The theory being that 20% of your people
deliver 80% of your results on average.

260
00:11:37,331 --> 00:11:40,048
I'm not saying there's
a correlation between those figures

261
00:11:40,048 --> 00:11:41,346
but isn't that interesting?

262
00:11:41,346 --> 00:11:44,622
20% are engaged and they happen to
be generating 80% of the results.

263
00:11:44,622 --> 00:11:46,151
Here's the interesting thing:

264
00:11:46,151 --> 00:11:49,684
I've travelled extensively, I think
I won that prize for countries visited,

265
00:11:49,684 --> 00:11:51,590
over 70 looking at cultures and tribes,

266
00:11:51,590 --> 00:11:54,633
so if a chocolate fish is up for grabs
put my name down for it.

267
00:11:54,633 --> 00:11:56,932
I found that no tribe
that I've ever come across

268
00:11:56,932 --> 00:11:58,688
that runs engagement surveys.

269
00:11:59,948 --> 00:12:01,283
Why would they?

270
00:12:02,153 --> 00:12:03,843
They're in contact with the people,

271
00:12:03,843 --> 00:12:06,939
know what's going on,
they don't need a survey for feedback.

272
00:12:06,939 --> 00:12:08,932
It's in dialogue, in everyday expression,

273
00:12:09,142 --> 00:12:10,959
brought to the table at every meeting.

274
00:12:11,629 --> 00:12:14,479
They're paying attention to,
truly listening to each other,

275
00:12:14,479 --> 00:12:15,302
as tribe members.

276
00:12:15,302 --> 00:12:16,943
We don't do that in organisations.

277
00:12:17,503 --> 00:12:20,251
I often suggest that leadership
in modern organisations

278
00:12:20,251 --> 00:12:21,781
has become an email sort.

279
00:12:22,011 --> 00:12:24,078
In tribes, it's a contact sport.

280
00:12:24,888 --> 00:12:26,902
Again it sounds like
a clever play on words

281
00:12:26,902 --> 00:12:29,329
but some real differences
show up when you do that,

282
00:12:29,329 --> 00:12:31,783
and lessons potentially
to be learnt from that.

283
00:12:32,173 --> 00:12:34,916
The other thing about engagement
in traditional tribes is

284
00:12:34,916 --> 00:12:37,706
it's not 20% of the people
delivering 80% of the results,

285
00:12:37,706 --> 00:12:40,870
it's 80% of the people
delivering 100% of the results.

286
00:12:41,650 --> 00:12:44,554
The 20% that aren't involved
in delivering those results

287
00:12:44,554 --> 00:12:46,564
are either too young and still learning,

288
00:12:46,564 --> 00:12:50,086
being brought up as tribe members,
learning the traditions, the skill sets

289
00:12:50,086 --> 00:12:53,161
required to make them
contributing tribe members,

290
00:12:53,161 --> 00:12:54,547
or they're too old,

291
00:12:54,887 --> 00:12:57,299
so their responsibility
then is more a mentor role,

292
00:12:57,299 --> 00:13:00,532
passing on the traditions
and the stories of the old times

293
00:13:00,532 --> 00:13:02,088
to the next generation.

294
00:13:02,278 --> 00:13:05,567
Which in our western societies
seems to have drifted away, doesn't it?

295
00:13:05,567 --> 00:13:09,252
We tend to, when we they get too old,
we stick them in a retirment home

296
00:13:09,252 --> 00:13:12,208
and go and visit them every second month
if we've got the time,

297
00:13:12,208 --> 00:13:14,249
or is that just what happens in my family?

298
00:13:14,249 --> 00:13:14,975
(Laughter)

299
00:13:14,975 --> 00:13:16,945
It's interesting, yes? They embrace them.

300
00:13:16,945 --> 00:13:19,232
So even this whole
Gen Y thing in the workplace,

301
00:13:19,232 --> 00:13:23,950
Gen Ys have to have their managers
taught how to manage a Gen Y generation.

302
00:13:23,950 --> 00:13:25,055
What is intriguing is,

303
00:13:25,055 --> 00:13:29,161
how come no one's teaching the Gen Ys
how to respect the older generations?

304
00:13:29,581 --> 00:13:31,559
Respect the wisdom that has come before.

305
00:13:32,069 --> 00:13:33,390
As you would do in a tribe.

306
00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:34,841
Bizarre, don't you think?

307
00:13:35,471 --> 00:13:36,596
What else can we learn?

308
00:13:36,596 --> 00:13:42,972
I guess one of the things I'm big on, is
something around dignity in the workplace.

309
00:13:43,352 --> 00:13:45,606
You see, the thing I find
in traditional tribes,

310
00:13:45,606 --> 00:13:47,096
it doesn't matter who you are,

311
00:13:47,096 --> 00:13:49,416
what your role is,
or how old you are,

312
00:13:49,416 --> 00:13:53,174
it doesn't even, often, not always,
matter what gender you are,

313
00:13:53,174 --> 00:13:57,460
you are provided with instant dignity,
instant respect is afforded to you.

314
00:13:59,860 --> 00:14:02,793
And in southern Africa,
they have a word called "Ubuntu."

315
00:14:02,793 --> 00:14:07,224
"Ubuntu" meaning a person
is a person because of the people.

316
00:14:08,294 --> 00:14:11,799
So a manager is only a manager
because they have people to manage.

317
00:14:12,439 --> 00:14:15,816
Sales teams are only sales teams
because they have people to sell to,

318
00:14:15,816 --> 00:14:18,198
they have accountants
that process the numbers,

319
00:14:18,198 --> 00:14:20,822
a manufacturing department
that manufactures products,

320
00:14:20,822 --> 00:14:24,710
researches and develops those products,
imports those products in the first place.

321
00:14:24,770 --> 00:14:26,274
It makes sense, doesn't it?

322
00:14:26,274 --> 00:14:29,869
That who we are and what we do
is absolutely because the world we live in

323
00:14:29,869 --> 00:14:34,432
dependant on our ability to function well
with others, to serve with others.

324
00:14:34,892 --> 00:14:38,509
So this ubuntu is acceptable in tribes.

325
00:14:38,509 --> 00:14:40,474
And yet in businesses it's often missing.

326
00:14:40,474 --> 00:14:43,114
I know it would never apply
to the schools or businesses

327
00:14:43,114 --> 00:14:44,382
that you people belong to,

328
00:14:44,382 --> 00:14:46,204
but have you heard of organisations,

329
00:14:46,204 --> 00:14:49,691
where they have silo mentality,
one department at war with the other?

330
00:14:49,691 --> 00:14:51,193
Have you heard about that?

331
00:14:51,373 --> 00:14:54,611
It's just bizarre, because that
never occurs in a tribe.

332
00:14:55,591 --> 00:14:58,539
And it's interesting,
the way leadership responds to this,

333
00:14:58,539 --> 00:15:02,299
one of the key areas, that there's an
opportunity as well as the leadership role

334
00:15:02,299 --> 00:15:05,471
in organisations and tribes are two
fundamentaly different things.

335
00:15:05,471 --> 00:15:08,138
Do this ... A little exercise for you,
for just a moment.

336
00:15:08,138 --> 00:15:12,197
Take a moment, in your mind, picture
the structure of a typical organisation.

337
00:15:13,277 --> 00:15:15,091
It could be the school we're at today,

338
00:15:15,091 --> 00:15:17,291
a modern business,
a government department,

339
00:15:17,292 --> 00:15:20,145
if you were going to draw
a symbol to represent the structure

340
00:15:20,145 --> 00:15:22,293
of that organisation,
what would it look like?

341
00:15:22,363 --> 00:15:23,403
You got that?

342
00:15:24,613 --> 00:15:28,372
Now, picture within that where
would you typically position leadership?

343
00:15:29,732 --> 00:15:32,733
Hold that for a moment,
you've got a structure and a position.

344
00:15:32,733 --> 00:15:35,351
Now, even if you've never been
to a traditional tribe,

345
00:15:35,351 --> 00:15:37,893
think about the structure
of a traditional tribe,

346
00:15:37,893 --> 00:15:39,776
what shape would you choose for that?

347
00:15:39,776 --> 00:15:41,256
Picture that in your mind.

348
00:15:41,256 --> 00:15:43,693
Then think about where
would you position leadership

349
00:15:43,693 --> 00:15:45,654
within a traditional culture.

350
00:15:46,284 --> 00:15:47,533
Here's a question for you:

351
00:15:47,533 --> 00:15:50,482
How many, for the first one
went for something like a triangle,

352
00:15:50,482 --> 00:15:52,454
hierarchical, with leadership at the top?

353
00:15:52,454 --> 00:15:53,480
Show of hands.

354
00:15:53,480 --> 00:15:56,085
Yes, so we've all been
indoctrinated through that, yes?

355
00:15:56,245 --> 00:16:00,497
And traditional tribes, how many of you
did a more flat maybe even circular shape

356
00:16:00,497 --> 00:16:02,994
as the symbol that came up,
and where was leadership?

357
00:16:02,994 --> 00:16:04,553
In the middle, yes, centered.

358
00:16:05,063 --> 00:16:09,709
And so this is a huge insight into why
tribes are able to sustain culture,

359
00:16:09,709 --> 00:16:12,784
our neighbours in Australia,
we know from the artefacts alone,

360
00:16:13,004 --> 00:16:16,159
traditional culture there
is a minimum of 30,000 years old.

361
00:16:17,889 --> 00:16:21,135
So, here we are, modern society,
talking about sustainability,

362
00:16:21,135 --> 00:16:24,149
we have experts across the channel
we could be learning from.

363
00:16:24,149 --> 00:16:25,410
Likewise in this country.

364
00:16:25,700 --> 00:16:28,308
Some of the wisdom
contained on the Marae here,

365
00:16:28,558 --> 00:16:30,836
is what we should be paying attention to.

366
00:16:30,836 --> 00:16:33,559
The ability to be in amongst
the people as an equal,

367
00:16:33,599 --> 00:16:36,893
listen and pay attention to one another,
is incredibly powerful

368
00:16:36,893 --> 00:16:39,924
and offers an opportunity to do,
not only learning and sharing,

369
00:16:39,924 --> 00:16:43,035
which of course is crucial,
it's why we're all here today at TED.

370
00:16:43,515 --> 00:16:47,152
More importantly, it offers us
the opportunity to share that dignity,

371
00:16:47,152 --> 00:16:50,544
to pass that respect
back to different people.

372
00:16:51,294 --> 00:16:54,421
Even the language, I often refer
to language within organisations,

373
00:16:54,421 --> 00:16:57,753
and with any culture,
language is the bloodline of culture.

374
00:16:58,373 --> 00:16:59,373
If you want to gauge

375
00:16:59,373 --> 00:17:01,862
how well a company
or a traditional culture is going,

376
00:17:01,862 --> 00:17:03,202
you listen to the language.

377
00:17:03,202 --> 00:17:05,418
It gives you clues as to what's going on.

378
00:17:05,418 --> 00:17:06,556
I was doing some work

379
00:17:06,556 --> 00:17:08,896
where an organisation
asked me to do exactly that.

380
00:17:08,896 --> 00:17:10,797
I spent a few weeks floating around jobs

381
00:17:10,797 --> 00:17:13,101
doing whatever it took
to listen to the language.

382
00:17:13,101 --> 00:17:13,949
Interestingly,

383
00:17:13,949 --> 00:17:18,042
the most commonly spoken word in that
organisation began with the letter "F."

384
00:17:19,132 --> 00:17:20,690
It wasn't football.

385
00:17:20,690 --> 00:17:21,942
(Laughter)

386
00:17:21,942 --> 00:17:23,141
Yet interestingly enough,

387
00:17:23,141 --> 00:17:27,240
when you went into the reception area
they had the values on the wall there,

388
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,360
of integrity, teamwork, sharing and trust.

389
00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:32,422
Which do you think
is believable and real?

390
00:17:32,422 --> 00:17:34,181
The language people are speaking,

391
00:17:34,181 --> 00:17:35,740
or the proclaimed values?

392
00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:39,099
The difference between
tribe and organisation

393
00:17:39,099 --> 00:17:41,497
is a tribe lives the values
lived on a daily basis,

394
00:17:41,497 --> 00:17:45,329
organisations typically have executives
that go off on a thing called a retreat.

395
00:17:45,679 --> 00:17:47,443
As an anthropologist it's fascinating

396
00:17:47,443 --> 00:17:49,836
that businesses go on a retreat
and not an advance,

397
00:17:49,836 --> 00:17:52,381
but that's what they choose
to do and call it.

398
00:17:52,381 --> 00:17:54,258
They create a set of values, come back

399
00:17:54,258 --> 00:17:57,171
and they have the audacity
to stand up in front of their tribe

400
00:17:57,171 --> 00:17:59,979
and announce the tribe's values
to their own people.

401
00:18:01,469 --> 00:18:04,402
"We, your esteemed leaders,
have come up with a set of values.

402
00:18:04,592 --> 00:18:08,057
They are integrity
and team work and respect.

403
00:18:08,317 --> 00:18:11,084
And we will honour these values
and we will fight for them.

404
00:18:11,334 --> 00:18:14,091
In the workplaces and in the cafeteria
and in the carpark.

405
00:18:14,091 --> 00:18:18,143
We will never surrender 
our commitment to these values."

406
00:18:18,283 --> 00:18:20,277
It used to work well in the last century,

407
00:18:20,277 --> 00:18:22,521
but nowadays that's 
a bit like a Tui (beer) ad.

408
00:18:22,521 --> 00:18:23,648
(Laughter)

409
00:18:24,298 --> 00:18:26,597
The audience sits there,
they don't hear values,

410
00:18:26,597 --> 00:18:28,156
what they hear is violations.

411
00:18:29,386 --> 00:18:30,909
They hear you go, "Integrity":

412
00:18:30,909 --> 00:18:33,659
"Really? Weren't you having
an affair with the secretary?"

413
00:18:33,659 --> 00:18:34,575
(Laughter)

414
00:18:35,315 --> 00:18:39,315
So, culture's started to position itself
in such a way within businesses,

415
00:18:39,315 --> 00:18:41,548
that I even inform
a lot of my clients now,

416
00:18:41,548 --> 00:18:44,610
that it's possibly their strongest
form of competition.

417
00:18:44,940 --> 00:18:47,452
They're threatened by
their own competition more than

418
00:18:47,452 --> 00:18:49,544
the physical competition
in the market place.

419
00:18:49,544 --> 00:18:53,471
I started to pay attention to this
once Enron Arthur Andersen and Co

420
00:18:53,471 --> 00:18:55,141
started to fall apart at the seams.

421
00:18:55,141 --> 00:18:56,533
Here's the interesting thing:

422
00:18:56,533 --> 00:18:59,004
Enron's competition didn't
put them out of business.

423
00:18:59,314 --> 00:19:00,440
Enron's culture did.

424
00:19:01,900 --> 00:19:04,942
And Enron's leadership
of that culture more specifically.

425
00:19:05,152 --> 00:19:07,091
I've seen this time and time again.

426
00:19:07,321 --> 00:19:09,513
We are failing at culture
in organisations.

427
00:19:10,533 --> 00:19:14,236
And yet we have the innate ability
for that just not to happen.

428
00:19:14,436 --> 00:19:16,369
It's a natural way of being human.

429
00:19:16,609 --> 00:19:19,307
Birds flock, fish school, humans tribe.

430
00:19:20,117 --> 00:19:22,105
We know how to do this, it's very simple.

431
00:19:23,265 --> 00:19:24,673
I guess to wrap this up,

432
00:19:24,673 --> 00:19:27,450
one of the key things I'm interested
in paying attention to

433
00:19:27,450 --> 00:19:30,210
is two dynamic forces
I see play out in many organisations.

434
00:19:30,210 --> 00:19:35,144
This can be government departments,
churches, schools, or organisations.

435
00:19:35,144 --> 00:19:40,120
And that is the dynamic forces
of relationship versus result.

436
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:45,299
If you don't pay attention
to those two in your organisation,

437
00:19:45,299 --> 00:19:47,597
there's some bizarre stuff
that starts to happen.

438
00:19:47,997 --> 00:19:51,139
We talk a lot with our organisations
to pay attention to those two.

439
00:19:51,139 --> 00:19:53,530
To get a result, what happens
to the relationships?

440
00:19:53,530 --> 00:19:56,203
Is there a relationship between
relationship and results?

441
00:19:56,203 --> 00:19:58,451
Do people need to get on
to deliver the results?

442
00:19:58,451 --> 00:20:00,706
If there is, you better pay attention,

443
00:20:00,706 --> 00:20:02,528
you better take culture seriously.

444
00:20:02,528 --> 00:20:04,123
You better start to get tribal.

445
00:20:04,513 --> 00:20:07,008
I guess the best story
I can share with you on this

446
00:20:07,008 --> 00:20:10,649
that really massaged the point home for me
was actually our own children,

447
00:20:10,649 --> 00:20:14,154
my wife and I, this was
about a year or so ago,

448
00:20:14,664 --> 00:20:18,616
we heard our daughter and son fighting
over the TV remote in the room next door

449
00:20:18,616 --> 00:20:20,042
which normally means trouble,

450
00:20:20,042 --> 00:20:22,856
we were debating who was
going to go and play United Nations

451
00:20:22,856 --> 00:20:23,932
and rescue them.

452
00:20:23,932 --> 00:20:25,387
It was getting pretty intense.

453
00:20:25,387 --> 00:20:27,104
And then suddenly, it went silent.

454
00:20:28,034 --> 00:20:29,490
And that terrified us,

455
00:20:29,490 --> 00:20:32,273
because when it goes silent,
we realised someone was dead.

456
00:20:32,273 --> 00:20:33,003
(Laughter)

457
00:20:33,103 --> 00:20:35,545
So we both stood up in panic,
and ran into the room

458
00:20:35,545 --> 00:20:37,834
and came accross a bizarre situation.

459
00:20:38,444 --> 00:20:41,613
Daughter and son, standing there
just looking at each other.

460
00:20:42,023 --> 00:20:43,525
My daughter looked a bit upset.

461
00:20:43,525 --> 00:20:45,295
Oh, here we go, what's happened now?

462
00:20:45,395 --> 00:20:47,029
And I say "Guys, what happened?"

463
00:20:47,379 --> 00:20:50,424
My son turned round and says,
"Dad, I waved the white flag".

464
00:20:50,875 --> 00:20:51,745
I said "You what?"

465
00:20:52,245 --> 00:20:53,560
"I waved the white flag."

466
00:20:53,560 --> 00:20:56,190
He'd overheard us talking about
some work that we'd done

467
00:20:56,190 --> 00:20:57,854
about results versus relationships.

468
00:20:57,854 --> 00:21:00,024
Waving the white flag,
what that means is -

469
00:21:00,454 --> 00:21:03,035
and this is how he put it -
"I was just thinking Dad,

470
00:21:03,035 --> 00:21:04,476
I'm bigger and older than her,

471
00:21:04,476 --> 00:21:07,081
I could easily get that remote
and demand it off her.

472
00:21:07,281 --> 00:21:08,849
But I realised this is my sister,

473
00:21:09,389 --> 00:21:12,078
I have to grow up with this girl
for the rest of my life,

474
00:21:12,798 --> 00:21:16,046
the relationship is more important
than the result right now."

475
00:21:16,476 --> 00:21:17,835
Wave the white flag.

476
00:21:18,035 --> 00:21:19,339
Interestingly he also said,

477
00:21:19,339 --> 00:21:22,199
"Besides, I need to borrow
pocket money off her on Saturday."

478
00:21:22,244 --> 00:21:23,394
(Laughter)

479
00:21:23,584 --> 00:21:26,013
So in reality, there's a result
in there as well.

480
00:21:26,513 --> 00:21:28,097
So, parting words for you,

481
00:21:28,097 --> 00:21:29,686
what I'd like to leave you with,

482
00:21:29,686 --> 00:21:32,621
is the opportunity to explore
in your own lives and tribe

483
00:21:32,621 --> 00:21:35,903
be that your own family, the organisations
you work for and belong to.

484
00:21:35,903 --> 00:21:37,767
Have a look and measure yourself

485
00:21:37,767 --> 00:21:40,958
in terms of how you relate to others
and the results you strive for.

486
00:21:40,958 --> 00:21:42,938
Are you jeopardizing relationships

487
00:21:42,938 --> 00:21:45,022
that maybe deserve more dignity than that?

488
00:21:45,022 --> 00:21:48,308
And can you find the courage to consider
maybe waving your white flag,

489
00:21:48,308 --> 00:21:51,145
surrendering your position,
your opportunity to win,

490
00:21:51,754 --> 00:21:53,019
for that relationship?

491
00:21:53,749 --> 00:21:56,043
I believe that's a great idea,
worth doing.

492
00:21:56,043 --> 00:21:57,021
Thank you very much.

493
00:21:57,021 --> 00:21:58,229
(Applause)

494
00:22:06,191 --> 00:22:07,951
Fantastic.