.jpg)
Leadership Levers
This podcast spotlights leaders' actions so they may enhance their organization’s performance and culture.
We feature CEOs and industry-recognized Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who share their experiences and insights on three key challenges: people, performance, and profit.
If you are a leader who wants to learn from your peers about improving performance and financial returns, please join us.
Leadership Levers
Culture Chemistry - Transforming Your Organization into a High Performing Powerhouse with David Anderson
Ready to harness the power of culture to turn your organization into a high-performing team & an unstoppable force for success?
In this episode, David Anderson, CEO & Founder of DWA Leadership, shares his journey from government roles to entrepreneurship and executive leadership.
David emphasizes the critical role of building high-performing teams and fostering a healthy, evolving culture to drive business success. He discusses the importance of intentional culture - how leaders need to adapt as their companies grow, and the challenges of managing people, processes, and profits to maximize potential.
He highlights the disconnect that exists between leadership’s perception of culture and the reality experienced by employees, stressing the need for constant communication and feedback.
He dives into the challenges and opportunities of managing a multi-generational workforce, revealing how leadership is like chemistry - requiring constant adjustments for optimal team dynamics and sustained growth.
David also notes the value of psychological safety, servant leadership, and the benefits of empowering influencers within the organization to shape and sustain a winning culture.
Get ready to explore the intricacies of evolving roles within organizations and why clear, consistent communication from leaders is crucial. David's practical advice and strategies serve as a reminder of the impact culture has on cultivating performance, growth, and overall success.
We'd love your feedback on how we can improve - send us a Text!!
Seeking to strengthen your culture, boost performance & impact your bottom line? Let’s chat—no sales, just real talk about your challenges.
Not ready? Join our Culture Think Tank Community for free insights!
Welcome to the Leadership Le Podcast. I'm your host, Will Gladheart, CMO at the Culture Think Tank. At the Culture Think Tank, we empower leaders with metrics that strengthen culture, drive performance and return. We're here today to learn about the actions leaders have taken to address organizational change. Our guest today is David Anderson, CEO and founder of DWA Leadership. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
William Gladhart:Thank you, glad Glad to be here, Looking forward to it.
William Gladhart:Excellent. Well, let's start by having you share with our audience a bit about yourself, your background and your organization.
David Anderson:All right, and in 30 minutes, or you want the three minute version, the three minute version please? Yeah, no problem. Problem, thanks for having me on today. So my name is David Anderson.
David Anderson:I am a lifelong entrepreneur 30 years. Entrepreneurs have started numerous companies a marketing agency that's been in business off Madison Ave for over 25 years. I have a software marketing Marcom software company been around six or seven. That's still what keeps me awake at night. I really focus now I don't have a day-to-day role in either of those companies on working with executive teams, on building high-performing teams. We all know that if you have a great, you can have the best strategy in the world, but if you don't have the right team in place high-performing team you're never going to achieve that. I do some public speaking. I sit on some boards. My past before that I did a stint in government which was interesting, from government to entrepreneurship, worked in Washington DC, capitol Hill and the White House and a bunch of other stuff. But to spare your audience of all of the details of my life, hopefully that covers it all and you can dive in where you see appropriately from there.
William Gladhart:Absolutely Well. I'm glad you don't let any dust settle, as you, like many entrepreneurs, you just keep iterating or creating. So 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?
David Anderson:Yeah, it's absolutely. You know what, and it took me a long, long time to really actually, being honest, fully understand the importance of culture in an organization and how that contributes and is actually the guiding force in building high-performing teams, which I focus so much on now. Which high-performing teams? The stats I could rattle off for another 10 minutes on the stats of how, when you have the right culture and which results in a high-performing team increased productivity, increased efficiency, increased profitability, increased revenue growth, increased sales I mean the list just goes on and on and that's not my stats. Just pull it up on ChatGPT, look at HBR, look at McKinsey, look at any of them. We'll give you tons there.
David Anderson:So really having that healthy culture, a people-focused culture with boundaries and we can go more into that if you want is really what drives people and you know. But we also always have to keep in mind that culture means different things to different people. What culture means to my 25-year-old? I don't know, is that millennial or whatever he is? And my 22-year-old is very different than a culture for a 60-year-old. That you have in an organization and how you blend those together can definitely be a challenge.
William Gladhart:Yeah, I think well one. I love that you addressed some of the stats, because those are the things that we really dive into and love here at the Culture Think Tank, simply because there is a direct correlation between culture, well-being and performance. Productivity bottom line return one of the most frequent questions we get these days just about you know, how do we manage four generations of people with all different perceptions of culture, all different needs, all different styles of communication? So it's been our experience that leaders tend to struggle in three key areas people, process or profits. In your role as a leader, but also with working with high-performing or building high-performing teams, could you identify which of these areas has presented a cultural challenge in your own organization or in another group that you've worked with?
David Anderson:Yeah, so I got through college by checking the box. All of the above those all lead into it and you know it's really interesting. A lot of what I work with now is I love working with growth oriented companies, companies that are really focused on growth, not necessarily the stable, and what I found is where culture needs to form and evolve because cultures absolutely need to evolve is first is as companies go from it. You know there's the five. There's different theories, but the five I like the seven stages of growth that companies go through. As those companies grow and a lot of them are tied to not only revenue, but the number of people that you have in the organization process becomes a key factor in managing and sustaining growth. Because you go like, even in my own companies, three people sitting around a room yelling over our shoulder we need this, we need that, we need this to 21 people, which is one of the first next steps, and then 49 or whatever it is yeah, whatever it is as you go through how the process becomes so key to organizational growth. Now, as an entrepreneur, what do I despise more than anything else? Dave, you have to follow the process, so it's usually us leaders that are the ones that are causing some of the biggest problems around the process, because we just don't do a good job following it. Moving forward with that, the people mix.
David Anderson:In my book I talk about and when I'm public speaking I talk about.
David Anderson:Being a leader is like being a chemist, because it's the constantly changing of the formulas that you need to have to maximize your end product, whether that's a chemical, a pharmaceutical, whatever it is, it's chemistry and we as leaders those trying to build, maintain and grow cultures evolve cultures. It's being a chemist every day when you bring in a new president, senior level person or something that's going to change the culture or it can affect the culture, and how do you change the chemistry around that, with the person, the people and all of that and those two. I think the third P you talked about was profits, right? Yes? Well, you don't have profits. You don't have profits without P1 and P2. I'm in this, I'm in marketing, because it's about as simple of math as you can do. I don't need to know anything more than plus and subtraction in most cases in running our company, and P1 plus P2 equals P3, in this case equals profit, and if one of those two aren't operating most efficiently. You can still have profits but you're definitely not maximizing your profit potential.
William Gladhart:Absolutely Well. I appreciate that you bring up that you share a little bit more about those challenges but also dive a little deeper into the people element but also the process, because I know from experience as a leader like yourself or even a fellow entrepreneur, that sometimes the process feels very burdensome. It gets in the way of like either creativity, next steps, you know, going out and selling whatever that is, but if that structure isn't there you can't grow to the next level and you tend to plateau, et cetera. So kind of explain that challenge Was there any particular negative impact on the organization in that as you were working through that people process or profit element?
David Anderson:I think, in a growing company.
David Anderson:One of the challenges you have where people and process can conflict is when you start a business and your first five, eight, nine, 10 people are on board and then you go to the next level and you put process on them and they get more and more removed from maybe the leader or the leadership things. Our egos are natural. I'm not criticizing Just our natural egos is I'm less important around here. My role's changed. I used to be involved in everything, now I'm not. And how you manage that can be very challenging going through that because there's a lot of brain chemistry involved. You know, in all of that. That goes into how people react to that and, as a leader, the ability to constantly reinforce, reassure people, their role, the importance that they play, people their role, the importance that they play it's just a bigger piece of the pie and we need you to do other things is one area Plus.
David Anderson:A lot of times, too, people are like the Is it three words, six words? This is how we used to do. It is the six words I despise more than any six words in business and that comes to the right people mixes. Well, this is how we've always done it. Well, that's great when we were a million dollar company and 12 of us and now we're a $5 million company and 25 of us. It just doesn't work. And if I can say one more thing about this, one of my absolute favorite books I coach about, I'm a Marshall Goldsmith certified coach. Marshall Goldsmith, I think, sums it up the best is what got you here won't get you there, and that's a hundred percent how you have to manage the evolution, not change the evolution of your culture as the people in process part grow.
William Gladhart:Yeah, I think it's really impactful that you touched on the part about helping people understand their role and the constant communication required, because we've heard from CEOs from the horse's mouth of well, you know, my employees don't really know what they're doing. You know, my employees seem like they're lazy and it literally comes back that the leader has not been clear in communication, in direction, in next steps for leaders, managers, et cetera. So people are just ping ponging around or there is the quiet quitters that people have just stopped working and they come to work. You know it means something a little different now that you know we're all back in the full swing of the business world. But yeah, it's been really interesting to kind of see that change and movement happen. But the disconnect of what the leader perceives versus what actually the employee experiences is something that's really important to bring up. So thank you for sharing that. So could you share with us maybe the one thing that you identified that helped impact your culture, or how you've helped with that high-performance team area?
David Anderson:Yeah, a couple of things. It's going back to what you just said. That's why I work with teams, not just CEOs, because it's a combination of issues and when a CEO says that, or a leader, it's like you want to hold up a mirror right, my team, my team, my team or play Michael Jackson's song. Take a look in the mirror, or whatever it was.
David Anderson:And that's a lot of what needs to be done. Is you just have to? What got you here won't get you there going forward. The question you asked me was a particular instance. Is that what you said?
William Gladhart:One thing you identified that helped impact your culture, or you know a team that you worked with positively.
David Anderson:Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I think you would agree with me. For the CEOs Well, you know, I think you would agree with me. For the CEOs listening, entrepreneurs, owners, even CEOs to a level Leaders can discuss and set the tone for the direction, but it's the people below you that set the culture. You don't set the culture. You have a wish list of what you want the culture to be, but it's really the team, because, you know, I know leaders who say the culture of my company is this, and then I go talk to their team and they're like that's not the culture of this, that's a fantasy, that's what he or she thinks. So I firmly believe that it is.
David Anderson:Every single organization has influencers below the leadership that will have a very significant not a total, but a very significant role on the culture. And it's just like we need to be doing all the time. We need to be growing the people below us. We need to be communicating with the people below us. We need them to be the ones that say to their peers no, that's not how we do this around here, not the CEO or COO or senior leader, because it's peer-to-peer then and that's where that grows there.
David Anderson:So literally one of my clients. Now I, you know, oh, what's the culture of your company? And then I talk to their team and they're oh yeah, that's in his mind, that's really not how it is at all. Team, and they're oh yeah, that's in his mind, that's really not how it is at all. So what we, as leaders, need is somebody who can give us reality checks and tell us what's really going on and how to adjust things. We need leader interpreters, as I call them, translators, stuff like that that can help formulate the. It's not a one person job of creating the culture. It's the full team.
William Gladhart:Right. Well, I really love that you shared that CEO or leader disconnect, because we statistically, in several of our white papers and research we've done, we see an almost 52% perception gap of what the employee actually says or believes their role or the culture is at an organization versus what the CEO or C-suite is actually determined or think it is. You're preaching to the choir on that particular piece and, yeah, it's very fascinating, but I think you also have a really great positive message to share with leaders about thinking about that communication, the culture, the constant observation of what's happening at the company. So is there anything else you'd like to add or share with fellow leaders?
David Anderson:Yeah, I mean the best cultures that an organization will have again, not Dave's research pick any of them, and I'm interested in yours Will are the organizations that foster a culture of psychological safety, one where everybody feels they're heard Doesn't mean that it goes their way, but everyone feels they're heard, everyone is comfortable raising issues, everyone is comfortable respectfully challenging each other, because we know that through collaboration and brainstorm, not conflict, the only difference between brainstorm and conflict is when ego gets in the way is where it leads to the best outcomes for the organizations and when the organization is winning in total, the people are winning in total.
David Anderson:There's more growth opportunities. There's more opportunities to learn and grow. There's. You know, people want to go to work for the companies with the great cultures. Yeah, there's a financial aspect to it, but even more and more with the current generations, and that it's a lot less about the money and things. And just don't make the same mistake I made for the first I don't know at least half of my career, if not more of underestimating the value of the people and the culture that is created and how that directly ties to the performance of your company overall.
William Gladhart:That's a really excellent way to wrap up our session. So, David, I've enjoyed having you on our Leadership Levers podcast. Thanks again for your insights.
David Anderson:Awesome. Thank you for having me.
William Gladhart:Thank you for joining us on the Leadership Levers podcast. Find all our Leadership Levers episodes on the Culture Think Tank website at www. theculturethinktank. com or listen on your favorite streaming platform. We'd love to hear from you about the challenges you have faced as a leader. Tune in weekly as we invite leaders to share their experiences in strengthening culture and performance, one action at a time.
