An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization

The authors are adamant that self-development and business success go hand in hand. This book explains how to create a culture in which everyone becomes more self-aware and works on their personal growth, to their own benefit and the benefit of the wider organization.

Profiling three hugely successful businesses that have already taken this route, "An Everyone Culture" explains how to integrate self-development into your organization so that everyone is on board with this approach. The authors use the term "Deliberately Developmental Organizations," or DDOs for short, to describe these institutions, which use errors and weaknesses as opportunities for personal and company growth.

"An Everyone Culture" is for leaders who view people development as a priority, and want to see everyone in the organization flourish. As one employee in a successful DDO put it, "Every day I get up and I am absolutely clear what I am working on – myself." This attitude has a positive effect throughout the business.

You may already be operating as a DDO, in which case the book will confirm that what you're doing works. Or you may just be starting out on this journey. But, whatever your situation, this book is bound to give you inspiration and practical ideas.

If turning your organization into a DDO sounds like a huge commitment, don't worry – you're in good hands. Kegan and Laskow Lahey are experts in the field of adult developmental theory.

Laskow Lahey is on the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and is a founding principal of Minds at Work, a leadership development firm. Kegan is the Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard. They've been research collaborators for 30 years, and have co-authored two other books on leadership.

So keep listening to find out why weaknesses are an asset and errors an opportunity, how helping others achieve success is better than working for your own, and why criticizing your boss is sometimes the right thing to do.

The introduction is titled "Culture as Strategy," and it's the best place to start, since it summarizes the main concepts in the book.

The main idea is that you need to keep growing in order to give your best – to yourself and to your employer. From 30 years of research into adult development, the authors have found that mature adults can retain more layers of information and think further into the future than younger adults can.

But, to achieve your full potential, you need to identify areas for growth and be willing to suffer the pain of personal development, as well as feel its joy.

Development is hardwired into the culture of a DDO. People bring the whole of their humanity to work every day: their strengths, weaknesses, limiting mindsets, and patterns of behavior. In a DDO, this is accepted. These organizations don't see their people solely in terms of the roles they perform but as human beings.

In Chapter One, the authors take you inside three DDOs, and give you a glimpse of how an "everyone culture" works. The companies offer very different services but, as DDOs, they share common ideas.

At one, meetings start with a "check in," where people sit in a large circle and are encouraged to say what's on their mind. They might share how they're feeling that day, or what aspect of their personal development they're working on.

You may think this is a non-profit or community organization. But it's The Decurion Corporation, as interested in profit as any business. As the parent company of the ArcLight Hollywood cinema multiplex, it's hugely successful. ArcLight Hollywood is the backdrop for star-studded film premieres, with revenues of $81 million in 2013.

At Decurion, people are encouraged to make themselves vulnerable and share their weaknesses, to bring their whole authentic selves to work. Once those personal inadequacies have been aired, people can work on them and, ultimately, do a better job for the company.

For instance, an employee who's overly confident with a tendency to hog the spotlight in meetings could try waiting until the half-way point before commenting. He would be improving his listening skills, as well as his self-control. At the same time, this leaves the floor open for a less confident colleague, who may have a different perspective that would be useful to hear. This way both individuals are developing, and the company benefits too, because a more considered decision may emerge from the meeting.

Another characteristic of DDOs is their emphasis on humility and altruism. In DDOs, people who extend themselves to support their colleagues are more valuable than shining stars, who are only interested in furthering their own careers.

Next Jump is an e-commerce tech company whose goal is to grow into a top-10 global technology business. When the company was founded, managers hired the smartest and most driven individuals, but soon discovered these employees were "brilliant jerks," who were either arrogant or solo players – or both.

Next Jump needed people who had the humility to recognize they weren't perfect and the courage to work on their growth, as well as a willingness to help others. In 2008, the company fired half its engineers and started hiring through "Super Saturdays."

This is when 40 potential recruits spend the whole day at the Next Jump offices, being observed and assessed by current employees. The data collected is unconventional. How well do the new recruits listen? Are they willing to learn from others? Do they have the ability to give to others? The successful candidates are the ones who score highest on these metrics.

As you might expect, relationships are strong in a DDO. People share their knowledge, expertise, strengths, and vulnerabilities. This creates great bonds between employees, because they're all helping one another to develop. This takes courage and sensitivity, and it's sometimes painful. An "everyone culture" won't sit well with all your people, and some will resist it. Leaders need to support their people in this approach, and set a good example.

For an "everyone culture" to work, employees need to be aware of their limitations and patterns of behavior. DDOs agree that constructive feedback is essential, because it often takes someone else to point out our weaknesses.

In a DDO, it's considered not only acceptable, but your duty, to give honest and open feedback. This includes highlighting colleagues' weaknesses – no matter how high up the pecking order they are. Critical feedback is seen as an opportunity to grow in a DDO, and it shows that your colleagues care about your development. You have to take it on the chin.

For instance, Decurion top executive Nora Dashwood experienced an epiphany when a lowly theater assistant told her that the air "went cold" in a meeting if things weren't going the way she wanted. From this simple comment she realized that she withdrew her goodwill when things didn't go her way.

Dashwood traced this back to a mindset inherited from her family. The message she learned from strong-willed immigrant parents was: take care of yourself, because no one else will. Since this realization, she learned to listen and delegate, and she understands that the results produced by communal efforts are much bigger than anything she can produce on her own.

But, Dashwood knows her personal growth in this area, and the empowerment of staff that followed, was only possible because Decurion is "deliberately developmental." This is what sets DDOs apart: their focus on providing the right conditions for people to recognize and deal with behaviors that limit them and the organization.

In Chapters Three and Four, the book explains how to create an environment that enables people to learn and develop. Firstly, the company must encourage a culture in which errors and weaknesses are valued.

At Connecticut-based hedge fund Bridgewater, employees are rewarded for recording failures and problems in an "issues log." This is treated as a valuable resource for identifying the root causes of problems in the company. And, since Bridgewater is considered one of the world's best-performing hedge funds, this strategy seems to be working.

Secondly, a DDO must cultivate an atmosphere of trust, so that everyone, from the CEO to the lowest-ranking assistant, can share their failures and weaknesses without fear of judgment or reprisal.

And, finally, a DDO must have routines and practices that normalize the culture and support employees, such as Bridgewater's issues log and Decurion's check-in.

Leadership is also crucial to the success of DDOs. All this delving into people's personal limitations could lead to intrusion and self-criticism. So it's essential that leaders are vigilant and work consistently to maintain a supportive culture. Even one experience of a weakness being used against you at work would make you feel less confident and trusting.

If you're skeptical about DDOs being able to make a profit, Chapter Five is a must-read. Here, we hear more about the tech firm Next Jump, where the two most senior leaders pass some of their responsibilities to their most talented managers. This enables the senior leaders to devote more time to the business, and gives new leaders the opportunity for further growth.

Supporting people in this way can lead to higher performance all around. Talented managers can increase their knowledge about the business and take on more challenging work, which can lead to greater job satisfaction, lower staff turnover, and improved productivity.

So, if you'd like to run your company as a DDO, turn to Chapters Six and Seven. They guide you gently through the process of assessing your current business, and outline what you need to do to become "deliberately developmental."

But don't expect a checklist or step-by-step instructions. The concepts, tools and real-life examples provide ideas, but you'll need to adapt them for your organization and continue to modify them. Practicing as a deliberately developmental organization is a lifelong organic process.

Although the book deals with academic theory and radical concepts, the writing style is accessible – even to people without a background in management or leadership. We love that the authors talk directly to their audience, yet make no assumptions about who we are.

They share their vulnerabilities as a way of connecting, and some readers might find their empathy and reassurance patronizing. But others will find it comforting to know they're not alone in feeling a bit scared about this process.

And to illustrate how others have negotiated their journey to a better self, the book includes case studies that most people can relate to, like the one about Nora Dashwood. In this way, you can see that the pain of personal development has its rewards.

These case studies and the many quotes from leaders that illustrate the DDO experience make the transition to becoming a DDO feel real and doable. As does the book's tendency to give detailed descriptions, which bring the people and places to life. We witness the atmosphere of a Super Saturday recruitment day at Next Jump, and feel we really get to know people like Dashwood.

The book sets out to show us a new model for realizing human and organizational potential. Whether you work for a small business or a large corporation, the theory, tools and details to implement this approach are all here, if you have the motivation to do it. You'll need to adapt these to fit your own organization and it may be a painful process but, as the case studies show, this approach can open the door to increased profitability, more honest communication, and better problem solving.

The book does make the assumption that most people at work hide their failures and weaknesses instead of using them for self-development. This unfounded generalization didn't sit well with us, but it's worth overlooking this anomaly for the breadth and depth of the insight offered in the book.

"An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization," by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, is published by Harvard Business Review Press.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.