Cultivating Corporate Resilience in Times of Change with Rachel Keck

Is the establishment of a flourishing company culture a luxury for leadership or the fundamental cornerstone of a sustainable business?

Discover the roadmap for cultivating a flourishing workplace culture with Rachel Keck, Founder of Mosaic-Collaborative, our final guest on Season 1 of the Leadership Levers podcast!

Rachel, a fellow leader, executive coach, and customer service experience expert sits at the intersection of customer service and culture - she unveils the journey that led her to establish Mosaic-Collaborative during the pandemic.

She shares her insights on why creating a robust workplace culture is not just a luxury,  but the bedrock of sustaining a business. For any leaders guiding a startup or managing a mid-sized company, our conversation is a wealth of actionable wisdom on how to foster a culture that attracts talent, retains it and excels in driving exceptional customer service.

Rachel addresses the complexities of steering cultural change, especially in mid-market companies, where the stakes and challenges are uniquely intertwined. She stresses the necessity for deliberate action and dedication to see genuine cultural transformation, which can often take up to three years to materialize fully. It's a marathon, not a sprint!

Rachel's candid observations on maintaining culture as a strategic focus, despite the whirlwind of market shifts and unexpected events, make this episode an indispensable listen for those committed to nurturing a culture that endures and flourishes amidst change.

This episode is a roadmap for leaders seeking to anchor culture change firmly as part of their next steps & organizational priorities.

Connect with Rachel Keck on LinkedIn

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Transcript

William Gladhart: 0:00

Welcome to the Leadership Levers podcast. I'm your host, will Gladhart, CMO at the Culture Think Tank. Our Culture Think Tank community is committed to advancing workplace culture and well-being. We are a virtual hub for authors, investors, leaders, managers and employees worldwide to connect, engage in candid discussions, share ideas and explore resources for cultivating a healthy work environment. We're here today to learn about the actions leaders have taken to address cultural change. Our guest today is Rachel Keck, Coach, Consultant and owner of Mosaic- Collaborative. Thanks for taking the time to join us today.

Rachel Keck: 0:40

I'm happy to do it.

William Gladhart: 0:42

Awesome. I thought we would start by having you share with our audience a bit about yourself, your organization, your background. Go ahead.

Rachel Keck: 0:51

Well, I have. I've kind of not taken a linear road in my professional career, so I'm a little all over the place, but I really have served mostly at the intersection of customer service and culture. I started my career in account management and started a company with a partner doing training and development, leadership development and actually in 2015, we had our first culture consulting gig, where we had to sell culture on top of the product, the offering that we had. So I've been an external consultant. I have worked internally in companies as a culture chief, culture officer, as leader of customer experience most recently, and then I've led nonprofit board and served inside nonprofit. So I kind of have touched a lot of different places when it comes to this culture leadership landscape But But specifically started Collaborative July of 2020 COVID because it seemed like leaders needed a little support. So I thought this is a good time to do something, and so, really, mosea Collaborative is the idea is just to support leaders in creating sustainable, healthy culture.

William Gladhart: 2:25

I know this is going to be a great question for you, but we'll be discussing three questions today as a warm-up to start our conversation. Would you share why you believe a healthy culture is critical?

Rachel Keck: 2:35

Yes, sustainability is is why I think healthy culture is critical, which means that not all companies care about being sustainable, not. Not all of them want to grow and scale and last for a long time, and in those short short cycle companies, I don't know. The culture is that important important, but if you are building something that you want to carry on in a healthy way for a while, you really need to consider the decisions you're making today. How is that going to impact things tomorrow, next month, next year, five years from now? And that's when I think about sustainability. It's really choosing things today. That will set us up well for changes, adaptations in the future.

William Gladhart: 3:21

I think that plays a really critical part in recruitment retention getting the right people at your organization who are going to continue to promote, carry the torch, the right customer service people. As you've seen from your own experience, you know that experience makes the difference for the long term longevity of the company. So what do you see as the biggest challenge leaders face when addressing cultural change?

Rachel Keck: 3:44

So I end up most of the time in mid-market of companies, you know, maybe anywhere from fifty to two hundred people, maybe up to five hundred. We're varying revenues, but but really kind mid-market a size company. And so that's where my lens comes from, although I know, I know from conversations in my network that some of these things are across the board. It doesn't matter what size company you're in, because things are not a company.

Rachel Keck: 4:13

But for me I think intentionality is something that really gets in the way when you're, when you are really wanting to create cultural change. It takes a while. I mean, what I've always, the rule of thumb I've always heard is three years. It takes up to three years to see cultural alignment or see the effects of cultural change. And the intentionality to keep that in the forefront and commit to it is the biggest barrier in those companies because it can be very reactive. It can you know, if sales drop, culture strategy goes out the window, people revert back to their reactive like lower cells. It just, you know the priority shift so quickly in mid market companies. But that intentionality of keeping culture change at the forefront, I think is the biggest barrier.

William Gladhart: 5:05

Yeah, I think that's some really wise advice. But also you have something that's valuable from an experiential perspective, because you've seen it and you've seen it happen. You've experienced it both internally and externally. Yeah, that's a great example of sales drop. We got to make money, we got to pay people. Culture goes out the window and it takes a really strong vision and commitment from leadership to make that marathon of three years happen. Not, hey, we're six months, we're good. What do you think leaders can do to address this specific challenge?

Rachel Keck: 5:36

Thinking about sustainability, thinking about attentionality. These are very abstract ideas. How, to me, one of the tough things with culture in even DEI, when you're thinking about diversity within an organization if it's not clear and measurable, then it's very difficult to be intentional with it, it's very difficult to commit to it, it's very difficult to be accountable to it. And so, for me, what I think is most important when working with leaders, either inside of a company or outside of a company, is to get just very clear about let's define the culture that we want. Let's be very specific. If we have values, what are the behaviors for and against that value, so that then we can be accountable to it. Because without that clarity it is just sort of this great idea in the sky that nobody, there's nothing sticky, there's nothing sticky to it.

William Gladhart: 6:32

Continues to be the great idea in the sky that nobody ever gets to, which is incredibly frustrating, I know, for leaders, but so I love that you've addressed clarity, intentionality and really helping leaders understand that culture is in it for the long haul. Is there anything you'd like to share or add from your expertise or experience?

Rachel Keck: 6:52

Well, I think the only thing that comes to my right the moment that I would add is that, especially in the size of companies that I've worked with, there are times that the pivot is required. So, even though we say, okay, we're going to be really intentional about culture, we have a strategy that's defined and we're accountable to that strategy. You have a leadership change or something happens in the market or you don't. That funding that you thought was coming in is not coming in. Things happen and it doesn't mean that that culture strategy is in stone. I cringe when people have their value, corporate values, on the wall because values change.

Rachel Keck: 7:36

I mean my personal values have changed multiple times and so it's not that that culture strategy is set in stone. It can pivot along with your business. It's about keeping it very clear and so, when things change, stopping, slowing down. One of the so I wrote a book a couple of years ago and one of my favorite quotes from the book is you got to that a leader shared with me is you got to slow down, to go fast, and I think that's what I would just say. That goes back to the intentionality piece. We are going to stop and have a conversation about this before we take any action. I think that's just what I would add. It should be flexible, but priority.

William Gladhart: 8:15

Rachel, I've enjoyed having you on our Leadership Levers podcast today. Thank you again for your time and insights.

Rachel Keck: 8:20

Thanks Will.

William Gladhart: 8:21

Thank you for joining us on the Leadership Levers podcast. You may find all our Leadership Levers episodes in our Culture Think Tank community at www. culturethinktank. ai. Join the community at no charge and tune in weekly as we invite leaders to share their experience in strengthening culture, one action at a time.