Building a Culture that Sticks: Embedding Values, Behaviors, and Actions

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

She is the chief transformation and people officer at Goodway group. She has extensive experience in people operations, process management, strategic planning, leadership development, and corporate training. Previously, she led Park Place dealerships to multiple performance awards, including the prestigious Malcolm Bellridge award, and she helped Coca Cola enterprises implement an adult education program for manufacturing employees and a first quality system, similar in scope to [00:01:00] ISO. Candy. Welcome to the show

Kandi Gongora: Hello.

Dr. Jim: I know that we, touched on some of the stuff that's in your background, but I think the first step that we need to take is to get the listeners tied into some of the things that you feel are important. Tell us a little bit more about your story and the things that you've accomplished throughout your career.

Kandi Gongora: Thank you. The main thing is that I am a lifelong learner and many people say that I live it every day. I'm curious. I'm very curious. And that led me down the path where I am today. I actually went to school to become a psychologist became very interested in business and focus there.

And then I, Also became interested in learning and how people learn and how can we use that to change the direction of the workforce and where we're headed. So I ended up in education didn't start in HR, ended up here in a very different way, but my focus is. Always been around development and what does that mean for the business and for the client?

And so [: 00:02:00

And then I also helped educate. Employees at Coca Cola to read and get their GED is the 1st of a kind of any of those programs in Texas. And so that was very interesting. But then also, when I went to work at a car dealership, most people think of that as a not so great experience. And our goal there was to make it a, amazing experience buying a luxury automobile is a big deal for a lot of people. It should be celebrated. So we benchmark people like Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons, Walt Disney, and we learned so much and we built an organization that was not about selling cars, but about providing a service and experience for our clients.

am now at Goodway. Goodway. [: 00:03:00

Dr. Jim: One of the interesting things about your background that caught my attention you have this interesting intersection between psychology and education, and then you have a development emphasis.

Throughout your overall career arc, how does that, how do those three things intersect when it comes to your overall people strategy and how that shows up in the organizations that you've been a part of

Kandi Gongora: It's interesting because when I was in school, industrial psychology was not a big thing as it was after I graduated, but it does come to play when you think about people. It's, you do think about behaviors and you think about how do we change mindsets? How do we create clarity to create the goal of where we're going?

hen you also think about the [: 00:04:00

And I think having that in my background helps me think of the, think of it in different ways through those lenses, but then also how to bring them together.

Dr. Jim: You've been at good way for almost eight years and that was that was after, having spent almost 15 years or 16 years in the auto space. What's the biggest thing that caught you by surprise when you made the transition into this role?

ng and servicing experience. [: 00:05:00

We're changing the game in many ways, and then I came to advertising and the industry is constantly changing the game and constantly looking at ways to do things differently. So we are in a very fast paced industry. And so I think that was very, very different for me because we, although we worked fast and efficient, I believe this is totally different.

We do plan for a full year and we look out 3 to 5, but we revisit quarterly and truly do make pivots at times because of things that are changing things that come up with privacy. There's just so many different things that we really have to stay focused on that changes our direction.

And the auto industry is just slower.

the blocking and tackling of [: 00:06:00

Kandi Gongora: Onboarding has to be faster. And we have to really be aware of our knowledge management and how we look at that to inform our employees. So for example, at my car dealership experience, we did, we brought, we focused on onboarding. We had a week long program. It was really. 6 weeks after that program that took people through everything they needed to know to onboard well here.

We need them working and providing their expertise and what they bring to the table within a month. If not sooner, we still go through the experience. We just had to change how we got there and how we provide to them what they need along the way versus. Front loading everything, and then they can go.

things that operating system [: 00:07:00

We have to have that information to keep people up to speed. Once they join us and they can know where to go to get the most accurate information. And then learning also knows where to create the pathways there for the new people. To me, that's vital. Otherwise, we'll bring people in and they are.

Trying to keep trying to onboard, but then also behind and we're, we've lost some of that knowledge that we put out there while they were either onboarding or before they arrived.

Dr. Jim: When you're looking at, increasing this, the pace of onboarding and also the quality of onboarding. And making onboarding more of a of a sustained process what you're describing is pretty challenging if you have a single point of entry. So how did you democratize all of that information so that it's not purely the HR function that's taking.

All of that responsibility.

ll values. And so we look at [: 00:08:00

And those behaviors really, demonstrate that for us. And that goes throughout our whole system. Even though HR coordinated that, it was the. Project manager putting those in place. It's owned by the organization and by the leader. So that's 1 way. And that really signals to everybody how we do things here or how to be successful here.

Then we also have pathways or skill. The skill pathways where the leaders and the functions and the different businesses and brands that we have, they're responsible for identifying those and working with our leader in L and D to create those pathways. But we work with SMEs within the business.

the framework of which they [: 00:09:00

So there's a lot of different things that it. We have created the framework for, but we need the SMEs and or the leaders to execute or to give us the information. So it truly is a partnership that starts with us. They'll start with us, but then they work their way down from learning about the org to their function to their team and then, really on the client team. Even deeper down.

Dr. Jim: It's really interesting how you described creating the frameworks that the SMEs and the leaders own.

, how did you overcome? That [: 00:10:00

Kandi Gongora: It starts with what we're trying to achieve. We're all trying to achieve the same thing. At the end of the day. We just may see how we get there differently. And I think part of it is understanding how they're seeing it, the business leader, because they have a responsibility too. And then sharing with.

What are what we're looking at and what we're trying to achieve, and then how do we bring that together? And so we try to think of what's a good metric? What's a good measure? What are we trying to change here in the business? It's not an hr Program that i'm worried about i'm worried about what result we're trying to achieve.

So for example If we look at implementing team health, we have a process around where we have a role that will engage with our different client teams. These are client facing and we go through an assessment with them once a quarter and they let us know how their health is doing, how's communication, how are their processes, how's their skills.

t things that we measure. We [: 00:11:00

So that could be pushed back because what are we doing? That's taking time away from the client and. We don't have time for this work, or, they're getting good results. So why do we care? So we look at that and we look at other metrics that are important to the client, such as the NPS score, the quality of the work.

There's different things that we can directly tie back to that process, and we can look at teams that are doing well versus teams that don't have the results that we necessarily need, or we want them to be better. And we have found that when we do this work, and the team is really, focused and functioning on all cylinders.

g towards. We really want to [: 00:12:00

But can we at least try? And we got good results from that. They let us pilot it. We tried it. And so that yeah. That worked on that process, and we do the same thing, the same type of process each time is what are we trying to achieve? How does this help the client, the end client and contribute to the business?

And then can we pilot and what can we learn from that? And that's the process we use, but we. Do make sure that we have a business metric that we're focused on, or there is a path to that versus what this is mean for HR and just the people side of the business.

aving that client mindset in [: 00:13:00

Kandi Gongora: You mentioned the employee life cycle, how did things, we integrate things into the cycle. So we look at it a little differently too. We take that employee life cycle. And look at it just like a customer journey. What is it like while they're here? And what's key? What are key moments?

What are key things we need to consider? Some of those are for us to consider in HR. Some of them are for us to, for leaders to consider. And some of them, obviously, the employees are involved. When it comes to our people leaders, we've identified eight areas where these are critical in this life cycle.

And there are certain things that we need to do during those times as well as we need to measure it and we need to look at it and we need to be able to coach our leaders to be better or learn from those who are doing really well and spend time with them to understand what they're doing differently and apply it.

of building a dashboard or a [: 00:14:00

And so we're being very careful about how we roll these out, how we're looking at them, how we support with tools, learning, coaching in these different areas. And so that helps not only us see how we're doing across the board, but our people leaders in there, their leaders can see and really, truly make a difference with the data that we're looking at.

Dr. Jim: Really interesting stuff that you've brought to the table. And I'm curious how that ties in to the idea of embedding values. Behaviors and actions into your organization. Tell us about how that's related, especially with bringing this down all the way to frontline contributors, because oftentimes we see that's where the breakdown exists.

o the build out that you had [: 00:15:00

Kandi Gongora: What I just mentioned, even with the people leaders are behaviors, which I mentioned earlier are embedded in different processes, different frameworks, different assessments all throughout that life cycle. When we do bring people in, we do start with our behaviors and we introduce that. And as mentioned earlier, even in my last few roles, we had values and.

I was very fortunate to work for some amazing organizations and those values did not hang on the wall or sit somewhere on our desk or on a sticky note or anything like that. They, we actually lived them. So I had really good examples in my history, but what we have found when I first got at Goodway where there were really good values and everybody held.

ncial health and we focus on [: 00:16:00

And so scrappy was a nice way of saying we don't overspend, we don't fly first class, we. We look at ways. Are there other ways to do something without buying the expensive tool? Can we be, really resourceful there? What it turned into was let's save every little dime. And sometimes in the short term, it saved us money, but it really harmed us in the long term.

And so we could see people making those decisions, but they weren't wrong. If you look at our value, we just weren't clear enough as an organization. So we decided to look at a different way. Did some research and came up with the behaviors of how we can truly paint a picture for everybody here on how these behaviors play out.

that has really created the [: 00:17:00

And we, it's like our standards of our ways of working, which helps us as we're, we can be aligned on our strategic plan and all move in the same direction. But if we are. Behaving in different ways, or we don't have that baseline, it can create friction, social friction, which is not, it's not good.

And it can also create conflicts in how we're creating our system, whether it's through process or frameworks or even how we measure things.

Dr. Jim: If I'm paraphrasing what you just described you've basically developed an institutional dictionary and it's always good to have everybody operating out of the same set of definitions. So I think that's really good. What's interesting about what you mentioned is I'm still not connecting the dots on how you take that dictionary and embed that from day one of the employee life cycle.

ng process. And then we have [: 00:18:00

Kandi Gongora: Sure. So day 1 you, we do have for, when we're on video, you have the behavior deck, right? And so we purposely use a little connector little, I can't think what it's called, but it's like the circle that connects it and clips it all together because we can take these cards out and actually play with them.

We can, do games to engage when we're in person, but also they can, we can take behaviors out that no longer serve us and add some in if we see something missing. On their 1st day, they do get a deck of cards that has the behavior. It has which bucket it lives in because we have 3 buckets, heart, smart and grit, and then has the definition in the example.

xamples, we talk about them. [: 00:19:00

We let them work in groups and teams to come up with examples of how it could play out. What's their favorite behavior? Again, we can actually turn it into a card game. We have it both, virtually where it's on screen and we also have it where they can, actually touch their cards. And so that's where it starts.

What they also learn is our system for you call it performance management. We call it GPS grow, perform, succeed and that program. There are many touch points around behaviors. So one example is how we are looked at, each month when we check in with our manager, our people leader, we look at our success factors.

month. Maybe some behaviors [: 00:20:00

We're trying to implement whatever the reason. It's very personal to that person about what they need to bring forth. Turn on a little bit. Where they're doing well, call that out. And then the rest of it is around impact and growth, which goes back to behaviors. You're not going to make as large of an impact if your behaviors are in the good place.

And then also when it comes to growth. We can look at that again and add the behavior they need to improve upon in their IDP and our growth questions really around. Are you growing at the pace that we need? So it's not just about growing, but also the pace. And so sometimes a shortcut is tweaking your behavior.

And that leads to even faster growth. There's so many ways and areas where it's integrated throughout the life cycle.

re you growing as fast as we [: 00:21:00

Kandi Gongora: we absolutely have people who want to stay in their role, and they don't want to be a people leader. And that is great. How we focus their learning there, then is on the skills that they need to acquire for our future clients. As I mentioned, the industry is changing so quickly. And that's everywhere.

I, I understand that too, but we're skills that served us today are not going to serve us tomorrow. And it takes time to acquire those skills, unless they're adjacent, then it may be faster. They're adjacent to other skills you have. So we do focus on that is, is either increasing your scope of work you can do because you bring on new skills, different type of clients you can work on.

ust if you are a doctor, you [: 00:22:00

Dr. Jim: Good stuff, candy. We've covered a lot of ground. We've covered, what we need to do, why it's important to do it, how. When it comes to bringing values, behaviors, and actions to life, how do you get started? What's the framework that listeners need to think about in building this and putting it in action?

Kandi Gongora: If you already have your values, you're, you have a first step, especially if you really believe in those values. You believe they're right for your organization. They're right for where you're going with your strategy. 3 to 5 years, then start with that and under each value list out what that looks like.

om your values I would start [: 00:23:00

What do you see in there observe them? Do a ride along. What do you see and maybe jot down some examples of what you're seeing And then I would use Employees and describe what we're trying to do. What is the behavior? What's the difference? How does it play out? And so one of our behaviors is around making our meetings matter.

And so there's a lot behind that. But meetings are a big deal in organization. They can either go well, or they can be a waste of time. They can be very expensive. What are we trying to achieve from those meetings? And what does that look like on how we're going to achieve? So take some things maybe that are causing friction with your organization and You don't have to worry about the wording, jot them down.

e way to get started. I will [: 00:24:00

We did look at David Friedman, his culture by design. He did talk about behaviors. It's a good place to start to see his examples of his organization, the work that they've done and then turn it into what's important for you, like what's critical for you. So I think the key thing there is start with what you have.

If you feel like it's a good place, if it's not start from scratch, but just start writing down. Like painting the picture of what it looks like and then get employees involved. And then from there, you have to think about once you have them, they're not forever. So 1 of our behaviors is progress over perfection.

So we don't wait for perfect. We're constantly putting our work out there really quickly to get. To get responses and feedback and how can we make this better? And so put something out there, have employees respond to it, see how it works, see how it works in your performance management system, test it with a couple of your programs and different things, because you are going to have to embed it and see how that works.

And just test your way into [: 00:25:00

And then we had backup materials. We did that for a good 2 years and every week was a new behavior. We have 29 by the way. There's quite a few. And then when you, now we've moved on to our newsletter that goes out Monday morning, it's called the beacon and that behavior is included in there.

verybody looks towards that. [: 00:26:00

And so think about those. That's what will come next. Once you have your behaviors in place.

Dr. Jim: Candy, if people want to continue the conversation with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Kandi Gongora: I would love to hear from you. Everybody. I love to talk about this. I could talk about it all day. You can find me on LinkedIn candy gun Gora. You can. Also find me on Instagram, Kay Gongora. I will let you know, Instagram is more about my dogs.

I have five Australian shepherds, but I do engage on some content there and would love to, to hear from others who were either early in the journey, or maybe they have some ideas to share with me.

t is what is good look like. [: 00:27:00

But beyond just listing or stating what those values are, you need to define what That means in terms of common actions, common behaviors, common impact. And I think that is one of the foundational things that a lot of organizations should do more of to get those new hires into your organization, really living what those values mean and putting those into action.

at you mentioned and it ties [: 00:28:00

There's space that's built in for people that want to move up into leadership roles, but there's also space that's built into the idea that you can grow vertically in terms of your capability set or your scope of role. So these are things that leaders in organizations that care about building culture, care about building a common.

way of showing up should be paying attention to as they move forward in their journey of building high performance teams. So I appreciate you hanging out with us. For those of you who have listened to this conversation, let us know what you thought of it . If you haven't already done so, make sure you join the HR impact community so that you can find that at engage rocket.

co slash HR impact. And then tune in next time where we'll have another great leader joining us and sharing with us the game changing insights that helped them build a high performing team.