Fiona Johnson - Growing Positive Culture: Applying Product and Customer Principles to Develop Collaborative Teams and Motivated Individuals (Turing Fest 2022)

o you've built a company that's great at customer discovery – making the right product for your customers, and honed from diligent product discovery. But have you applied these skills to your most important resource – your team? From coders to the executives, culture matters. It affects behaviours (positive and negative) and permeates into company performance. Managing culture is tricky. It's formed by perceptions, observations, and deductions of how value is created within a work environment. Without a proactive, engaged approach, culture can become toxic, reducing innovation and fostering intra-team competitiveness and exclusion, concealing issues and building silos in the company. Left unchecked, these behaviours compound, leading to a downward spiral in company performance. This talk will provide tools that leaders and teams can use to build cultural intelligence and foster positive cultures. It will demonstrate how techniques used to understand your customer can be applied internally, to increase company productivity more effectively than by providing bean bags, ping pong tables and free soda.

Head to www.turingfest.com to learn more about Europe's best cross-functional tech conference.

Transcript

1. keilcentre.co.uk Growing Positive Culture Applying product and customer principles to proactively develop collaborative teams and motivated individuals Fiona Johnson – Human Factors Specialist 
 MSc – Human Factors; BEng(Hons) – Electrical & Electronic; BSc – Physiology 
 fiona@keilcentre.co.uk
2. Human Factors Engineering & Business Psychology Human Factors Consultant Oil & gas, power, construction, maritime, chemical, 
 pharmaceutical, rail, medical Software Start-up Founder Business Manager Engineering Project Manager Electrical Engineering, Process Safety Australia, USA, Angola, Germany 2
3. The Human Factors origin story Humanity’s existential crisis • Understand why we sometimes fail • Identify root causes • Provide tools to combat weaknesses
4. Culture • Innovation & creativity • Commitment to the vision • Motivation & employee retention • Job performance Your human platform
5. Culture • Perception of valued behaviours • Particularly by leadership • “Wrong” behaviours quickly erode culture Your human platform
6. NASA • Humankind’s greatest achievements • Elite scientists, engineers & operators • Aligned mission High performing organisation
7. NASA High performing organisation “Leaders create culture” Columbia Accident Investigation Board
8. NASA Its share of disasters how did they happen? • Time & budget constraints • Structure & hierarchy • Fluctuating priorities Insufficient resources to address developing issues Psychological barriers ‘Silo’ working, issues overlooked & inadequate integration
9. NASA Its share of disasters But we can’t be perfect So why don’t failures 
 happen more often?
11. People weave into every fibre of your performance • Humans are critical to organisational success • System needs more than individual excellence • Non-technical skills are the FUEL that o Fosters innovation o Combat intra-team competitiveness o Breakdown silos o Build performance 11
12. Looking again at NASA: • Communication barriers prevented: o Raising of issues & presenting alternatives o Warning signs being investigated • Critical in reducing risk • Should be considered alongside “technical” skills for staff & leaders o Understanding others’ needs o And the ‘bigger picture’ Non-technical skills (NTS) 12 Complimenting technical skills Situational Awareness Analytical Thinking & Decision Making Teamwork Leadership Resilience Creativity & Adaptability Communication
13. The WHY The brain
14. Eisenberger, Liebermann, and Williams, Science, 2003 [social pain images]; Liebermann et al., “The Neural 
 Correlates of Placebo Effects: A Disruption Account, “ Neuroimage, May 2004 [physical pain images]
15. Physical Pain Eisenberger, Liebermann, and Williams, Science, 2003 [social pain images]; Liebermann et al., “The Neural Correlates of Placebo Effects: A Disruption Account,” 
 Neuroimage, May 2004 [physical pain images]; Rock, D. (2009). Managing with the brain in mind. strategy+ business.
16. Social Pain Rock, D. (2009). Managing with the brain in mind. strategy+ business. Eisenberger, Liebermann, and Williams, Science, 2003 [social pain images]; Liebermann et al., “The Neural Correlates of Placebo Effects: A Disruption Account,” 
 Neuroimage, May 2004 [physical pain images]; Rock, D. (2009). Managing with the brain in mind. strategy+ business.
17. Social Pain Physical Pain Rock, D. (2009). Managing with the brain in mind. strategy+ business.
18. Social Pain Physical Pain & from an evolutionary perspective same threat Rock, D. (2009). Managing with the brain in mind. strategy+ business.
19. Social Pain Physical Pain & Rock, D. (2009). Managing with the brain in mind. strategy+ business. Fight, Flight or Freeze Stress hormones Focus in on the threat Blocks creativity Reduced problem solving Reduced communication
20. v1.0 0321 Psychological Safety 20 Social threat implications Have you met your milestone? The truthful answer is not great, and may get me, my team, or my supervisor in trouble I could tell them the “right” answer, but that would be a lie – and we could also get in trouble IMPLICATIONS: • Problems are hidden • Cannot provide support for people • Short-cuts and work-arounds • Increases risk
21. Humans need to be part of the tribe 21 TRUST Culture provides frame of reference for value “The willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of someone else based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to you” Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20, 709-734.
22. 22 aligned vision personal motivation performance culture
23. The ANSWER
24. Support Social Gain Status: listen & respect alternative views Certainty: be consistent & have each other’s backs Autonomy: give control & allow own approach Relatedness: value people & their challenges Fairness: treat people fairly & put yourself in their shoes Rock, D. (2009). Managing with the brain in mind. strategy+ business.
25. 25 Feedback What skills do you already have? Customer Discovery & Product Discovery Evergreen process Validation 
 Develop, Test, Deliver Exploration Research, Ideate, Evaluate Define
26. 26 Feedback Apply the same processes internally Human Performance Discovery Evergreen process Develop the culture 
 Test, Deliver, Live it Explore the tribe Engage, Listen, Understand Define The customer is your workforce & teammates
27. Techniques applied in Industry Work Process Analysis & Redesign o Critical Task Identification o Task Analysis o Human Error Analysis 27 Human Factors Five Whys – Incident or Human Failure Analysis Just & Fair Performance Management Performance Support – 
 Leadership Coaching Customer Interviews / Focus Groups – 
 Development of Behaviour Standards, Safety Culture Gap Analyses Demand/Stress Tests – 
 Fatigue & Workload Assessments Journey / Experience Mapping – 
 Training & Competence Development Management of Organisational Change Interface & Product Design Prioritisation, Prototyping & Usability –
28. Apply • Behaviours showing “right” values o Set the standard & live it o Communicate openly o Involve & support the workforce 28 • Build supportive work systems o Diverse & inclusive o Create “safe-space” dialogue o Be willing to adapt
29. Human Factors Physiology Psychology Design Systems Maximise Performance
30. with thanks: Kerry Finlayson 
 Head of Engineering at Quorum Cyber Eileen McLaren 
 VP of Product at Blackford Analysis