7 Levels of Ethical Business Practice
(Reading Time: 9 minutes)
Unethical or illegal behavior doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are multi-layered cultural influences at play, whether conscious or not, that encourage such behavior. The job of promoting ethics cannot be left to the compliance or legal function alone. Instead, leadership across the organization must cooperate in order to address the systemic factors in the culture that influence employees.
Cultures Created by Leadership Teams and Groups
(Reading Time: 5 minutes)
Through our work, we have found that the level of consciousness of the leadership group is a significant factor in diagnosing the cultural issues of an organization. Based on the thousands of surveys we have carried out, we have been able to develop some relatively hard and fast rules about organizational cultures and leadership groups.
Building a Winning Organizational Culture
(Reading Time: 8 minutes)
This article focuses how to define organisational culture, and what you can do to improve it.To build a high-performing, values-driven organisation, you will need to develop a cultural transformation process that targets both the personal alignment of the leaders and the structural alignment of the organisation.
The Six Modes of Decision Making
(Reading Time: 7 minutes)
Richard Barrett explains the six modes of decision-making in the framework of the Barrett Model™. These six modes of human decision-making are all evolutionary support systems that have evolved to protect the integrity of the body, the ego, and the soul. Each mode of decision-making is naturally tailored to enable us to handle increasing levels of complexity in the world around us and enhance our ability to respond.
Fearless Leaders
(Reading Time: 7 minutes)
Using data from Barrett Values Centre’s® Leadership Development Reports, a 360‐degree leadership development tool, differences among leaders based on their level of personal entropy were analyzed. Personal entropy is the amount of fear-driven energy that a leader expresses in his or her day-to-day interactions. The lower the personal entropy, the fewer fears the leader brings into the workplace. High entropy leaders, on the other hand, let fear drive their decision-making.
Fundamentals of Cultural Transformation
(Reading Time: 6 minutes)
This paper explores the concept of whole system change. It identifies the four principles necessary for whole system change and provides a nine-step process for implementing cultural transformation.
Cultural Capital
(Reading Time: 4 minutes)
This paper explores the topic of cultural capital and its relationship to financial performance. It reviews research on this topic and comes to the conclusion that even though there is no direct measure of cultural capital, proxy measures such as cultural alignment and Cultural Entropy® clearly indicate a positive correlation between cultural capital and sustained high revenue growth.
Understanding the Battle of the Sexes
(Reading Time: 7 minutes)
This article reports on perceived differences among leaders personal entropy (degree of dysfunction) by gender. Data was gathered using BVC’s Leadership Values Assessments, a 360-degree leadership development tool, examining the top values, strengths, and areas for improvement. Significant differences among male and female leaders follow gender stereotypes.
What Motivates Employees
(Reading Time: 12 minutes)
The purpose of this paper is to deepen the discussion about what motivates employees. This paper briefly describes the seven stages of psychological development and the corresponding levels of motivation. These are linked to Harvard Professor Robert Kegan’s work on the three types of mind (socialized mind, self-authoring mind, and self-transforming mind). Each of the three types of mind has different drives and motivations and is linked to different levels of job complexity. Understanding the motivations of the different types of mind is essential to creating a high-performance organisation with high levels of employee engagement.
Evolutionary Coaching
(Reading Time: 3 minutes)
Richard Barrett discussed the coaching process through the lens of the universal principles of evolution.
Leadership Success Factors
(Reading Time: 5 minutes)
This article examines the differences among leaders based on their personal entropy. Personal entropy is the amount of fear-driven energy that a leader expresses in their day to-day interactions. We found significant differences among the leaders, with one exception. All personal entropy bands shared the value of commitment. We also found that the values displayed by leaders in the lowest personal entropy band are more relationship oriented and similar to the characteristics commonly attributed to successful leaders.
Values-Based Leadership
(Reading Time: 2 minutes)
The culture of an organization is a reflection of the values and beliefs of the leaders. As the leader’s values change, the culture changes. If you want to change your culture, you must begin by measuring the employees’ perception of the current culture and their desired culture. This allows the leadership group to find out what is working and what is not working and take action to introduce changes that align with employees’ desired cultural values. As you do this, year by year, you will find the level of values alignment increasing, the level of the Cultural Entropy score decreasing, and the level of employee engagement increasing.
Theoretical Support for the Barrett Model
(Reading Time: 5 minutes)
Originally developed in 1997 by Richard Barrett, the model was formed by leveraging ancient eastern philosophy to extend Maslow’s concept of self-actualization in his hierarchy of needs. The result was a depiction of the full spectrum of needs underlying human motivation and behavior.
HOW TO GET YOUR CORE VALUES RIGHT
(Reading Time: 9 minutes)
How do you make your culture real and have an impact on your long-term success? By taking advantage of one of your most important, yet often underutilized, organizational assets: your core values. Most organizations have them, but many do not take the necessary steps to accurately define and fully live their core values day in and day out.
The Great Transformation?
The Cultural Implications of COVID-19
(Reading Time: 8 minutes)
Seemingly overnight, the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a formidable global disruption both in its magnitude and in its intimacy. Referred to as “The Great Pause,” it forced individuals, organizations, and even humanity at large to stop, look inward, and then shift how they operate in the world. What did that shift entail? And how great was it?