Mar 31 2022
Ron Carucci, author of "To Be Honest"
In today's episode, we chat with Ron Carucci. Ron is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, having 35 years of experience working with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders, and industries, he has helped some of the world’s most influential executives tackle challenges of strategy, organization, and leadership. From start-ups to Fortune 10’s. He is also a bestselling author of 9 books. Recently, the award-winning book, "To Be Honest: Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice and Purpose" was selected by Bloomberg Businessweek as one of 2021's Best Books. Ron and his team did a 15-year longitudinal study of more than 3,200 leaders. These included thought leaders, scholars, and world-class leaders. He wanted to give people hope that there are organizations and leaders out there living the things they want, modeling and behaving in the ways we long to experience. They aimed to understand what conditions make people lie, cheat and serve their own interests first. He thought, if he could predict/isolate the conditions that make people dishonest, then he could proliferate the conditions that produce honest behavior, and prevent the conditions that produce dishonest behavior?Based on that, Ron shared four conditions within organizations that tell us how the story's going to go. These 4 conditions include:Companies need to have a clear identity. Companies all make promises in their missions, visions, values, brand promises, their purpose statements turn out that if those words are not real lived experiences within the organization, meaning they are three times more likely to have people be dishonest.Transparency & governanceAt a meeting, there is transparency in the exchange of ideas. People believe that their voices and ideas are welcomed and they matter. If they want to offer a dissenting view or an alternative interpretation of data, they are free to do so. This means the company is three and a half times more likely to have people be honest and tell the truth.Accountability If the systems of how you measure and talk about contribution are seen as fair and dignified. Everyone has as much chance of being successful as anybody else. This means, if the systems are seen as fair dignified, people are four times more likely to have people be honest. Cross-functional rivalriesAcross companies, every system/department has healthy tensions in it, but if those tensions have nowhere to go and conflict remains unresolved and people have nowhere to reconcile those seams, the company becomes fragmented. On the other hand, if there is coherence in that organization, if the seams are stitched well, then people are able to collaborate in a way to resolve decisions or conflicts. That means they are six-time likely to have people behave, honestly, because they are now part of the same story. In conclusion, Ron suggests this action: Taking your company's promise, or mission statement, or value statement, and asking your team hard questions such as “ How well do we embody this promise? How well do I embody this promise? If somebody followed us around with a video camera all day long and a day in the life of our team, could they use that video as a training program for this promise? Ask yourself, the hard question of who is your they? Who's the person in another department that you're required to collaborate with, that when you see them in the caller ID, you roll your eyes and go, oh, what do they...
