WEBVTT

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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,

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80% are either sitting on the fence
or are clearly disengaged.

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What we mean by engaged,
is three things:

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they're willing to stay
with your organisation;

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to speak positively about the organisation
which given the social network forums

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that we have available to us nowadays,
crucial comment,

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you bad mouth your company
to millions of people on the Internet,

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it effects things like your reputation
and your brand etc;

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the other thing was to strive
for your organisation.

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Imagine if an organisation
has low levels of engagement,

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people aren't willing to stay,
to speak positively about it,

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or strive on behalf of it,

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what do you think that
does to productivity,

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customer service and job fulfilment?

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And yet all round the world,
we have 80% of the workers,

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and I'm talking about millions of people,
are not fully engaged in the work they do.

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Those numbers may sound familiar
if you're in business,

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have you heard of 20-80,
the Pareto theory?

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The theory being that 20% of your people
deliver 80% of your results on average.

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I'm not saying there's
a correlation between those figures

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but isn't that interesting?

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20% are engaged and they happen to
be generating 80% of the results.

00:11:44.622 --> 00:11:46.151
Here's the interesting thing:

00:11:46.151 --> 00:11:49.684
I've travelled extensively, I think
I won that prize for countries visited,

00:11:49.684 --> 00:11:51.590
over 70 looking at cultures and tribes,

00:11:51.590 --> 00:11:54.633
so if a chocolate fish is up for grabs
put my name down for it.

00:11:54.633 --> 00:11:56.932
I found that no tribe
that I've ever come across

00:11:56.932 --> 00:11:58.688
that runs engagement surveys.

00:11:59.948 --> 00:12:01.283
Why would they?

00:12:02.153 --> 00:12:03.843
They're in contact with the people,

00:12:03.843 --> 00:12:06.939
know what's going on,
they don't need a survey for feedback.

00:12:06.939 --> 00:12:08.932
It's in dialogue, in everyday expression,

00:12:09.142 --> 00:12:10.959
brought to the table at every meeting.

00:12:11.629 --> 00:12:14.479
They're paying attention to,
truly listening to each other,

00:12:14.479 --> 00:12:15.302
as tribe members.

00:12:15.302 --> 00:12:16.943
We don't do that in organisations.

00:12:17.503 --> 00:12:20.251
I often suggest that leadership
in modern organisations

00:12:20.251 --> 00:12:21.781
has become an email sort.

00:12:22.011 --> 00:12:24.078
In tribes, it's a contact sport.

00:12:24.888 --> 00:12:26.902
Again it sounds like
a clever play on words

00:12:26.902 --> 00:12:29.329
but some real differences
show up when you do that,

00:12:29.329 --> 00:12:31.783
and lessons potentially
to be learnt from that.

00:12:32.173 --> 00:12:34.916
The other thing about engagement
in traditional tribes is

00:12:34.916 --> 00:12:37.706
it's not 20% of the people
delivering 80% of the results,

00:12:37.706 --> 00:12:40.870
it's 80% of the people
delivering 100% of the results.

00:12:41.650 --> 00:12:44.554
The 20% that aren't involved
in delivering those results

00:12:44.554 --> 00:12:46.564
are either too young and still learning,

00:12:46.564 --> 00:12:50.086
being brought up as tribe members,
learning the traditions, the skill sets

00:12:50.086 --> 00:12:53.161
required to make them
contributing tribe members,

00:12:53.161 --> 00:12:54.547
or they're too old,

00:12:54.887 --> 00:12:57.299
so their responsibility
then is more a mentor role,

00:12:57.299 --> 00:13:00.532
passing on the traditions
and the stories of the old times

00:13:00.532 --> 00:13:02.088
to the next generation.

00:13:02.278 --> 00:13:05.567
Which in our western societies
seems to have drifted away, doesn't it?

00:13:05.567 --> 00:13:09.252
We tend to, when we they get too old,
we stick them in a retirment home

00:13:09.252 --> 00:13:12.208
and go and visit them every second month
if we've got the time,

00:13:12.208 --> 00:13:14.249
or is that just what happens in my family?

00:13:14.249 --> 00:13:14.975
(Laughter)

00:13:14.975 --> 00:13:16.945
It's interesting, yes? They embrace them.

00:13:16.945 --> 00:13:19.232
So even this whole
Gen Y thing in the workplace,

00:13:19.232 --> 00:13:23.950
Gen Ys have to have their managers
taught how to manage a Gen Y generation.

00:13:23.950 --> 00:13:25.055
What is intriguing is,

00:13:25.055 --> 00:13:29.161
how come no one's teaching the Gen Ys
how to respect the older generations?

00:13:29.581 --> 00:13:31.559
Respect the wisdom that has come before.

00:13:32.069 --> 00:13:33.390
As you would do in a tribe.

00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:34.841
Bizarre, don't you think?

00:13:35.471 --> 00:13:36.596
What else can we learn?

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.

00:13:43.352 --> 00:13:45.606
You see, the thing I find
in traditional tribes,

00:13:45.606 --> 00:13:47.096
it doesn't matter who you are,

00:13:47.096 --> 00:13:49.416
what your role is,
or how old you are,

00:13:49.416 --> 00:13:53.174
it doesn't even, often, not always,
matter what gender you are,

00:13:53.174 --> 00:13:57.460
you are provided with instant dignity,
instant respect is afforded to you.

00:13:59.860 --> 00:14:02.793
And in southern Africa,
they have a word called "Ubuntu."

00:14:02.793 --> 00:14:07.224
"Ubuntu" meaning a person
is a person because of the people.

00:14:08.294 --> 00:14:11.799
So a manager is only a manager
because they have people to manage.

00:14:12.439 --> 00:14:15.816
Sales teams are only sales teams
because they have people to sell to,

00:14:15.816 --> 00:14:18.198
they have accountants
that process the numbers,

00:14:18.198 --> 00:14:20.822
a manufacturing department
that manufactures products,

00:14:20.822 --> 00:14:24.710
researches and develops those products,
imports those products in the first place.

00:14:24.770 --> 00:14:26.274
It makes sense, doesn't it?

00:14:26.274 --> 00:14:29.869
That who we are and what we do
is absolutely because the world we live in

00:14:29.869 --> 00:14:34.432
dependant on our ability to function well
with others, to serve with others.

00:14:34.892 --> 00:14:38.509
So this ubuntu is acceptable in tribes.

00:14:38.509 --> 00:14:40.474
And yet in businesses it's often missing.

00:14:40.474 --> 00:14:43.114
I know it would never apply
to the schools or businesses

00:14:43.114 --> 00:14:44.382
that you people belong to,

00:14:44.382 --> 00:14:46.204
but have you heard of organisations,

00:14:46.204 --> 00:14:49.691
where they have silo mentality,
one department at war with the other?

00:14:49.691 --> 00:14:51.193
Have you heard about that?

00:14:51.373 --> 00:14:54.611
It's just bizarre, because that
never occurs in a tribe.

00:14:55.591 --> 00:14:58.539
And it's interesting,
the way leadership responds to this,

00:14:58.539 --> 00:15:02.299
one of the key areas, that there's an
opportunity as well as the leadership role

00:15:02.299 --> 00:15:05.471
in organisations and tribes are two
fundamentaly different things.

00:15:05.471 --> 00:15:08.138
Do this ... A little exercise for you,
for just a moment.

00:15:08.138 --> 00:15:12.197
Take a moment, in your mind, picture
the structure of a typical organisation.

00:15:13.277 --> 00:15:15.091
It could be the school we're at today,

00:15:15.091 --> 00:15:17.291
a modern business,
a government department,

00:15:17.292 --> 00:15:20.145
if you were going to draw
a symbol to represent the structure

00:15:20.145 --> 00:15:22.293
of that organisation,
what would it look like?

00:15:22.363 --> 00:15:23.403
You got that?

00:15:24.613 --> 00:15:28.372
Now, picture within that where
would you typically position leadership?

00:15:29.732 --> 00:15:32.733
Hold that for a moment,
you've got a structure and a position.

00:15:32.733 --> 00:15:35.351
Now, even if you've never been
to a traditional tribe,

00:15:35.351 --> 00:15:37.893
think about the structure
of a traditional tribe,

00:15:37.893 --> 00:15:39.776
what shape would you choose for that?

00:15:39.776 --> 00:15:41.256
Picture that in your mind.

00:15:41.256 --> 00:15:43.693
Then think about where
would you position leadership

00:15:43.693 --> 00:15:45.654
within a traditional culture.

00:15:46.284 --> 00:15:47.533
Here's a question for you:

00:15:47.533 --> 00:15:50.482
How many, for the first one
went for something like a triangle,

00:15:50.482 --> 00:15:52.454
hierarchical, with leadership at the top?

00:15:52.454 --> 00:15:53.480
Show of hands.

00:15:53.480 --> 00:15:56.085
Yes, so we've all been
indoctrinated through that, yes?

00:15:56.245 --> 00:16:00.497
And traditional tribes, how many of you
did a more flat maybe even circular shape

00:16:00.497 --> 00:16:02.994
as the symbol that came up,
and where was leadership?

00:16:02.994 --> 00:16:04.553
In the middle, yes, centered.

00:16:05.063 --> 00:16:09.709
And so this is a huge insight into why
tribes are able to sustain culture,

00:16:09.709 --> 00:16:12.784
our neighbours in Australia,
we know from the artefacts alone,

00:16:13.004 --> 00:16:16.159
traditional culture there
is a minimum of 30,000 years old.

00:16:17.889 --> 00:16:21.135
So, here we are, modern society,
talking about sustainability,

00:16:21.135 --> 00:16:24.149
we have experts across the channel
we could be learning from.

00:16:24.149 --> 00:16:25.410
Likewise in this country.

00:16:25.700 --> 00:16:28.308
Some of the wisdom
contained on the Marae here,

00:16:28.558 --> 00:16:30.836
is what we should be paying attention to.

00:16:30.836 --> 00:16:33.559
The ability to be in amongst
the people as an equal,

00:16:33.599 --> 00:16:36.893
listen and pay attention to one another,
is incredibly powerful

00:16:36.893 --> 00:16:39.924
and offers an opportunity to do,
not only learning and sharing,

00:16:39.924 --> 00:16:43.035
which of course is crucial,
it's why we're all here today at TED.

00:16:43.515 --> 00:16:47.152
More importantly, it offers us
the opportunity to share that dignity,

00:16:47.152 --> 00:16:50.544
to pass that respect
back to different people.

00:16:51.294 --> 00:16:54.421
Even the language, I often refer
to language within organisations,

00:16:54.421 --> 00:16:57.753
and with any culture,
language is the bloodline of culture.

00:16:58.373 --> 00:16:59.373
If you want to gauge

00:16:59.373 --> 00:17:01.862
how well a company
or a traditional culture is going,

00:17:01.862 --> 00:17:03.202
you listen to the language.

00:17:03.202 --> 00:17:05.418
It gives you clues as to what's going on.

00:17:05.418 --> 00:17:06.556
I was doing some work

00:17:06.556 --> 00:17:08.896
where an organisation
asked me to do exactly that.

00:17:08.896 --> 00:17:10.797
I spent a few weeks floating around jobs

00:17:10.797 --> 00:17:13.101
doing whatever it took
to listen to the language.

00:17:13.101 --> 00:17:13.949
Interestingly,

00:17:13.949 --> 00:17:18.042
the most commonly spoken word in that
organisation began with the letter "F."

00:17:19.132 --> 00:17:20.690
It wasn't football.

00:17:20.690 --> 00:17:21.942
(Laughter)

00:17:21.942 --> 00:17:23.141
Yet interestingly enough,

00:17:23.141 --> 00:17:27.240
when you went into the reception area
they had the values on the wall there,

00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:29.360
of integrity, teamwork, sharing and trust.

00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:32.422
Which do you think
is believable and real?

00:17:32.422 --> 00:17:34.181
The language people are speaking,

00:17:34.181 --> 00:17:35.740
or the proclaimed values?

00:17:36.680 --> 00:17:39.099
The difference between
tribe and organisation

00:17:39.099 --> 00:17:41.497
is a tribe lives the values
lived on a daily basis,

00:17:41.497 --> 00:17:45.329
organisations typically have executives
that go off on a thing called a retreat.

00:17:45.679 --> 00:17:47.443
As an anthropologist it's fascinating

00:17:47.443 --> 00:17:49.836
that businesses go on a retreat
and not an advance,

00:17:49.836 --> 00:17:52.381
but that's what they choose
to do and call it.

00:17:52.381 --> 00:17:54.258
They create a set of values, come back

00:17:54.258 --> 00:17:57.171
and they have the audacity
to stand up in front of their tribe

00:17:57.171 --> 00:17:59.979
and announce the tribe's values
to their own people.

00:18:01.469 --> 00:18:04.402
"We, your esteemed leaders,
have come up with a set of values.

00:18:04.592 --> 00:18:08.057
They are integrity
and team work and respect.

00:18:08.317 --> 00:18:11.084
And we will honour these values
and we will fight for them.

00:18:11.334 --> 00:18:14.091
In the workplaces and in the cafeteria
and in the carpark.

00:18:14.091 --> 00:18:18.143
We will never surrender 
our commitment to these values."

00:18:18.283 --> 00:18:20.277
It used to work well in the last century,

00:18:20.277 --> 00:18:22.521
but nowadays that's 
a bit like a Tui (beer) ad.

00:18:22.521 --> 00:18:23.648
(Laughter)

00:18:24.298 --> 00:18:26.597
The audience sits there,
they don't hear values,

00:18:26.597 --> 00:18:28.156
what they hear is violations.

00:18:29.386 --> 00:18:30.909
They hear you go, "Integrity":

00:18:30.909 --> 00:18:33.659
"Really? Weren't you having
an affair with the secretary?"

00:18:33.659 --> 00:18:34.575
(Laughter)

00:18:35.315 --> 00:18:39.315
So, culture's started to position itself
in such a way within businesses,

00:18:39.315 --> 00:18:41.548
that I even inform
a lot of my clients now,

00:18:41.548 --> 00:18:44.610
that it's possibly their strongest
form of competition.

00:18:44.940 --> 00:18:47.452
They're threatened by
their own competition more than

00:18:47.452 --> 00:18:49.544
the physical competition
in the market place.

00:18:49.544 --> 00:18:53.471
I started to pay attention to this
once Enron Arthur Andersen and Co

00:18:53.471 --> 00:18:55.141
started to fall apart at the seams.

00:18:55.141 --> 00:18:56.533
Here's the interesting thing:

00:18:56.533 --> 00:18:59.004
Enron's competition didn't
put them out of business.

00:18:59.314 --> 00:19:00.440
Enron's culture did.

00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:04.942
And Enron's leadership
of that culture more specifically.

00:19:05.152 --> 00:19:07.091
I've seen this time and time again.

00:19:07.321 --> 00:19:09.513
We are failing at culture
in organisations.

00:19:10.533 --> 00:19:14.236
And yet we have the innate ability
for that just not to happen.

00:19:14.436 --> 00:19:16.369
It's a natural way of being human.

00:19:16.609 --> 00:19:19.307
Birds flock, fish school, humans tribe.

00:19:20.117 --> 00:19:22.105
We know how to do this, it's very simple.

00:19:23.265 --> 00:19:24.673
I guess to wrap this up,

00:19:24.673 --> 00:19:27.450
one of the key things I'm interested
in paying attention to

00:19:27.450 --> 00:19:30.210
is two dynamic forces
I see play out in many organisations.

00:19:30.210 --> 00:19:35.144
This can be government departments,
churches, schools, or organisations.

00:19:35.144 --> 00:19:40.120
And that is the dynamic forces
of relationship versus result.

00:19:42.440 --> 00:19:45.299
If you don't pay attention
to those two in your organisation,

00:19:45.299 --> 00:19:47.597
there's some bizarre stuff
that starts to happen.

00:19:47.997 --> 00:19:51.139
We talk a lot with our organisations
to pay attention to those two.

00:19:51.139 --> 00:19:53.530
To get a result, what happens
to the relationships?

00:19:53.530 --> 00:19:56.203
Is there a relationship between
relationship and results?

00:19:56.203 --> 00:19:58.451
Do people need to get on
to deliver the results?

00:19:58.451 --> 00:20:00.706
If there is, you better pay attention,

00:20:00.706 --> 00:20:02.528
you better take culture seriously.

00:20:02.528 --> 00:20:04.123
You better start to get tribal.

00:20:04.513 --> 00:20:07.008
I guess the best story
I can share with you on this

00:20:07.008 --> 00:20:10.649
that really massaged the point home for me
was actually our own children,

00:20:10.649 --> 00:20:14.154
my wife and I, this was
about a year or so ago,

00:20:14.664 --> 00:20:18.616
we heard our daughter and son fighting
over the TV remote in the room next door

00:20:18.616 --> 00:20:20.042
which normally means trouble,

00:20:20.042 --> 00:20:22.856
we were debating who was
going to go and play United Nations

00:20:22.856 --> 00:20:23.932
and rescue them.

00:20:23.932 --> 00:20:25.387
It was getting pretty intense.

00:20:25.387 --> 00:20:27.104
And then suddenly, it went silent.

00:20:28.034 --> 00:20:29.490
And that terrified us,

00:20:29.490 --> 00:20:32.273
because when it goes silent,
we realised someone was dead.

00:20:32.273 --> 00:20:33.003
(Laughter)

00:20:33.103 --> 00:20:35.545
So we both stood up in panic,
and ran into the room

00:20:35.545 --> 00:20:37.834
and came accross a bizarre situation.

00:20:38.444 --> 00:20:41.613
Daughter and son, standing there
just looking at each other.

00:20:42.023 --> 00:20:43.525
My daughter looked a bit upset.

00:20:43.525 --> 00:20:45.295
Oh, here we go, what's happened now?

00:20:45.395 --> 00:20:47.029
And I say "Guys, what happened?"

00:20:47.379 --> 00:20:50.424
My son turned round and says,
"Dad, I waved the white flag".

00:20:50.875 --> 00:20:51.745
I said "You what?"

00:20:52.245 --> 00:20:53.560
"I waved the white flag."

00:20:53.560 --> 00:20:56.190
He'd overheard us talking about
some work that we'd done

00:20:56.190 --> 00:20:57.854
about results versus relationships.

00:20:57.854 --> 00:21:00.024
Waving the white flag,
what that means is -

00:21:00.454 --> 00:21:03.035
and this is how he put it -
"I was just thinking Dad,

00:21:03.035 --> 00:21:04.476
I'm bigger and older than her,

00:21:04.476 --> 00:21:07.081
I could easily get that remote
and demand it off her.

00:21:07.281 --> 00:21:08.849
But I realised this is my sister,

00:21:09.389 --> 00:21:12.078
I have to grow up with this girl
for the rest of my life,

00:21:12.798 --> 00:21:16.046
the relationship is more important
than the result right now."

00:21:16.476 --> 00:21:17.835
Wave the white flag.

00:21:18.035 --> 00:21:19.339
Interestingly he also said,

00:21:19.339 --> 00:21:22.199
"Besides, I need to borrow
pocket money off her on Saturday."

00:21:22.244 --> 00:21:23.394
(Laughter)

00:21:23.584 --> 00:21:26.013
So in reality, there's a result
in there as well.

00:21:26.513 --> 00:21:28.097
So, parting words for you,

00:21:28.097 --> 00:21:29.686
what I'd like to leave you with,

00:21:29.686 --> 00:21:32.621
is the opportunity to explore
in your own lives and tribe

00:21:32.621 --> 00:21:35.903
be that your own family, the organisations
you work for and belong to.

00:21:35.903 --> 00:21:37.767
Have a look and measure yourself

00:21:37.767 --> 00:21:40.958
in terms of how you relate to others
and the results you strive for.

00:21:40.958 --> 00:21:42.938
Are you jeopardizing relationships

00:21:42.938 --> 00:21:45.022
that maybe deserve more dignity than that?

00:21:45.022 --> 00:21:48.308
And can you find the courage to consider
maybe waving your white flag,

00:21:48.308 --> 00:21:51.145
surrendering your position,
your opportunity to win,

00:21:51.754 --> 00:21:53.019
for that relationship?

00:21:53.749 --> 00:21:56.043
I believe that's a great idea,
worth doing.

00:21:56.043 --> 00:21:57.021
Thank you very much.

00:21:57.021 --> 00:21:58.229
(Applause)

00:22:06.191 --> 00:22:07.951
Fantastic.