Today's episode of Be customer Led features Kimberly Wiefling, founding member & global consultant at Silicon Valley Alliances. Her superpower is uniting people of different nationalities, cultural backgrounds, and aesthetic preferences to accomplish a common goal. Kimberly has worked in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Also, she has visited Japan more than a hundred times to work with the culturally diverse staff of globalizing Japanese businesses. Throughout our conversation today, she imparts invaluable advice on creating an influential culture and leadership. 

[01:14] Background – Kimberly recounts the origins of her company, which she founded over two decades ago, and her professional journey. 

[04:36] Culture - Kimberly defines both corporate culture and leadership, and we talk about the relationship between the two. Also, we discuss the relationship between leaders and managers and whether one can be both, or if one must choose between being a leader or a manager.

[09:42] Disconnection -  Kimberly outlines why firms fail to give what employees want and why there seems to be a disconnect between the company, its executives and managers, and its employees.

[16:55] Culture in Japan -  What is the difference between the culture of Japan and Silicon Valley?

[19:07] Leadership - Leaders are responsible for creating and maintaining a strong organizational culture. This involves modeling the desired behavior, celebrating successes that align with the cultural values, and correcting or dismissing behavior that goes against the cultural norms.

[21:44] Culture - If you are a new leader and want to establish a company culture, Kimberly offers some suggestions on how to do so, as well as some actions you may take as an individual to alter an existing culture that is toxic or unappealing. 

[25:08] Action, Communication, and Thinking - The ACT framework is a simple and effective way for leaders to understand their roles and responsibilities.

Resources:

Connect with Kimberly:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/scrappykimberlywiefling/

Website: wiefling.com/

Website: kimberlywiefling.com/

Silicon Valley Alliances: siliconvalleyalliances.com/

Kimberly Wiefling on Developing Culture and Leadership That Has Impact

[00:00:32] Bill Staikos: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another week of B Customer led. I'm your host, bill Stagos, another amazing guest, folks. This week we have Kimberly Ling, who is the founder and president of Waffling Consulting. They focus on creating productive and super amazing cultures for their clients. She's also the co-founder of a really cool organization called Silicone Valley Alliances and does consulting through there as.

And just like a really amazing high energy person. I can't wait. Kimberly, it's so awesome to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on the show.

[00:01:09] Bill Staikos: I can't wait. So you are really I mean I've, you know, for every guest I do like the n s A level of kind of like groundwork and research, right?

So like everything that you have out there talking about building cultures leadership, that's where we're gonna focus their show. But before we get going, tell us a little bit about your journey. You know, why did you start this company 20 plus years ago? Like, what was the driver of there? And then you've got a great professional journey, which I think our listeners are

I gave you the two minute version. I started off growing up in the rural areas of Western Pennsylvania. You know, I like to tell people I was raised by wolves and you know, I didn't know anything about the business world or anything. So sophisticated as what I've experienced in the last 20 years. So when I was 18, I joined the military, got out of the house, got my GI bill, got out of there, went to college for seven years.

I wanted to be a scientist, bill. I wanted to be a scientist. I thought science was so cool. It still is. I had an Al Seltzer powered rocket for crying out loud , but then I got into Hewlett Packard and I started repairing their instrumentation, the mass spectrometers. It was really cool. Hardware, software, firmware, liquids, gases, high vacuum, high pressures.

And it was very interesting for me from a scientific standpoint, but what I noticed was the human being aspects were the most important with my customers, with the. Have you noticed that's the human skills we didn't study at all in science and engineering. That's

I mean, you have the quote, the, the famous Drucker quote on your LinkedIn right. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Right? I actually just used that quote in a, in a post recently, which is I think actually know even a blog post. So love that.

Now, when I go back to meet my old friends from Hewlett Packard, I always say I am so sorry for how I behaved when we worked together. Because after I quit Hewlett Packard, I joined startup companies. Which was actually a better fit for my personality. Yep. Like this is genetic bill. Okay. My whole family's like this, this, I'm the most calm of all of them.

[00:03:25] Kimberly Wiefling: So as you look Packard, you know, it was like, yeah, just kind of go along and get along and don't annoy people too much. and of course get results, but I really felt like I hired assassin there. You know? Yeah. We need Kimberly for this hard work, but we don't wanna be seen dining with her.

So then I quit and I started, I worked at three failed startup companies in Silicon Valley. Here I was in Silicon Valley with this boring job at HP with all this job security. And I finally just said, great, let me join the Silicon Valley startup and let me play the Silicon Valley lottery. You know?

Yeah. See if we. Get a ticket to a prize, which allows us to quit the jobs we hate . So three fail startups later came the.com bust and I'd always wanted to have my own business and I had a little business on the side and I'm like, why don't I start my business in the worst possible economy? Yeah, great idea.

So I did it 20 years ago. The first five years were the hardest.

I love that story. And look, there's so much going on in the world, right? Great recession, great boomerang, people come, gotta come back to work, et cetera, five days a week, all this stuff. Let's first by start talking about your definition of company culture and then similarly, what is your definition of.

And what I've come to understand from Dr. Chein is organizational culture. It's the way we do things around here, even though we've forgotten why we do it. Correct. It's like the air we breathe, it surrounds us, it influences everything, but nobody really notices it explicitly. So it's your values and action.

How do people behave? What do you fire your best engineer? For violating things like that, you know, you really see what the values and action are when you say, look at your top performing people, and what will you fire them for? That's the culture,

[00:06:04] Kimberly Wiefling: accept?

and there's one company that has something called after Bob Sutton. You know the Stanford professor, the No Asshole Rule. Yeah. I mean, some companies actually have this rule and they tell their interviewees during the interview process, you know, if you're an asshole and we hire you and we find out we will fire you.

Some people actually get up during the interview and leave .

[00:06:44] Kimberly Wiefling: You know, bill, I like to base my work on facts and well-researched data. So I look at what has been studied about leadership for the past 30 years, and in a nutshell, it's. Leaders set direction, align people on that direction and motivate and inspire them to go in that direction, whereas managers plan, organize, control, and correct, and both are important, but leadership has a much higher impact on results.

Barry Posner and Jim COOs at Santa Clara University down the road here, they've done 30 years of research from, what is it, over 70 different countries. What are the characteristics and behaviors of the best leaders on planet Earth? And what I mean by the best is leaders, people admire and willingly follow.

And what they found is over 80% of people said, if you're not honest, we don't follow you. Willingly forward-looking was the second globally. inspiring was the third and fourth was competent. They don't care if you're competent, if you're not forward-looking or inspiring for crying out , what do you think about that?

You can

[00:07:58] Kimberly Wiefling: to, right? No, but the leadership challenge that they distilled out, it's like, here's five practices of the best leaders in the world with six specific behaviors, and none of them are rocket science.

And by the way, none of them require a position or. So it's like model the way, inspire shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart, and by the way, encourage the heart. Those six behaviors in that category are the least practice in the world. When

Can you be both? Do you have to be both?

Nobody a raises their hand. I'm like, is it a language barrier? Do you understand what I'm saying? They're like, yes, Kimberly, we understand. We just do . Nobody wants to be managed

Can we use that as a, I wanna put that quote actually on a LinkedIn post when we've dropped this show. I love that. I've never

[00:09:30] Bill Staikos: I love it. I love it. Why do you think companies are failing at the things that employees are looking for? Like what's, what is it about the translation from company to leader slash manager to employee or workforce, right?

There are a lot of people that are about W2 s as we would call 'em here in the us. Like what's the disconnect? Why do you think

Oh, was it gravity? Bill? Are you blaming the, did you

[00:10:06] Kimberly Wiefling: Ah, I dropped the chicken. So this is the problem. Everybody thinks it's someone else. So when I work with individual contributors and I try to help them with leadership and team effectiveness and organizational culture, project management, they're like, yeah, but Kimberly, it's our managers who are the.

Then I go to the managers and I say, okay, come on. Here's the way to be more effective leaders and managers. And they say, yeah, but our executives are the ones you really need to, to take care of. Then I go to the executives and they're like, Kimberly, It's the President . Then I go to the president and he says, yeah, the c e o, and the CEO says, well, when the chairman dies, we'll be able to make some changes.

Literally, bill, I contacted one of my clients after their chairman died and I said, I'm so sorry to hear that your chairman died, and the person said, yes, but now we can make some good changes. They're waiting for people to die. Are you kidding me? So nobody feels responsible. Bill, I say this, look in the mirror.

We are somehow contributing to the crap that we don't like in our companies. Yeah. And we have some power, however tiny, to make a positive difference to that.

let's go back to the old way. Let's do it like that worked. We were making les of money when everybody was working from home too, but I wanna go back to five days a week. Why? Why do you think that that

A lot of people do what I call rush to solution. They don't think about why, who or what, or the majors of success. They just think about how to do so. And that is a guarantee for having one fourth a success rate in your projects according to some of the research

We know why companies are making a dis disconnect. How is that maybe different for teams or why teams fail? Or why leaders fail? And if they're different? Is it different reasons or is it the same

Okay? I have a master's in physics. I love data. I love science, I love research. So according to the research out of m MIT Sloan, the top causes of failure in global teams, and they studied teams from quite a few different, Number one was they didn't build trusting relationships. Number two was communication was less than suboptimal.

That wasn't their words, right? . And it involved not only language and culture, but it involved problem solving, decision making. They didn't have ways to do those effectively. Number three and four were. They didn't have clear shared aligned goals. Now whose job is it to build? Trusting relationships, have good communication, problem solving, decision making, and clear shared aligned goals.

The leaders. Yes. Hello. Your pills. So it is a failure of leadership that is leading to a failure in teams. How

Don't name names. How often is it like the c e o or their direct versus the

It just works better because here's what happens when I work with people in silicon. I get called in by some C level or VP level executive and they tell me about the problems and how I need to fix their people. And then they're sitting there with their pen about to sign this contract for lots of money.

And I say, don't sign that contract police before you sign that. I know you want me to fix your people, but when I find out that somehow you and the other executives are somehow contributing to the problems, . How do you want me to tell you? I say so nicely as I can, right? And they're like, oh, yes, Kimberly, just tell us directly.

Oh, okay. Then they sign the paper. Then three months later when I come to them and say, Hey, here's our plan based on the inputs I gathered from your people, and there's a few things that the executives could do to contribute to a. Impact and Oh yeah, we wanna hear Kimberly and I tell them what was said, advice to the executives about how to be better leaders of this organization.

Do you know what the first question they ask me, bill? Almost every time

[00:14:55] Kimberly Wiefling: said that? ? Yep. Who said that? So the first question they ask is, who said that? Seriously? Is that what really? And here's what happens next. Oh, a week or two later, oh, Kimberly, we're going in another direction now. One client was this billion dollar startup.

Right? Startup meaning like seven to 10 years of a startup. Yeah. And I working with their engineering team for like a year and a half. Really trying to get them on the right track cuz people were quitting and all that stuff. So now I start to say, oh my God, this is an issue with the c e O and the President.

And so I start to confront the president and the CEO O in the hallway and say, Hey, can I talk to you? I'd like to come in and have a conversation. There's some things I'd. I've seen and I've heard that might be helpful to you and you know what happens after that. Oh, thank you, Kimberly. We're going in another direction.

They stop hiring me, bill. So my goal is always be effective or be fired. Yeah. And for the most part, in the technically arrogant Silicon Valley with the executives who are so concerned with who said it and not concerned with changing. They don't care. It's such an ego fest. It's incredible Bill that they wouldn't care more about their people than their ego.

Yeah. But that is my sad analysis.

[00:16:09] Kimberly Wiefling: Japan? So interesting. In Japan, I do mostly work with middle layer people and the executive, one executive comes in Mr. Sakai, and he comes in and he says, I am Mr. Sakai. I am 62 years old. I am going to retire and play golf.

You must lead this company. Pay attention . So they know that they are giving the leadership to the next generation and they support it. They have no intention of changing. They know it, but they want the middle layer to be in a better position than they were. And, and is that working? It is amazing. So one of my clients in Japan, this is so.

Three months after that, boom, we, we meet in Tokyo and on the last day, they present their impossible projects at Tokyo headquarters to the executives. We have done that. We did that 18 times before, 2020 18 times . Wow. So we had like 70 impossible projects, 300 graduates. Graduates of the first program from 2008 are presidents of divisions now, and it's grown way bigger than me.

Of course, there's common language, common framework, common set of tools for leadership, for teams, for organizational effecti. And what I can see of that company is I think they are definitely succeeding at globalizing and becoming a more effective organization. Is it because of me? Hell no. It's because of them.

[00:18:12] Kimberly Wiefling: I. People don't understand culture. It's really that invisible thing.

Yes, it's not a static thing. So what happens with culture is it is created by people at the top model the way. That's one of the first things with the leadership challenge model the way. Be an example of the kind of behavior you wanna see. So if you're the founder of a company or you're the C E O and you tell people one thing, but you do another, it doesn't work.

So do this. Make a peace. P sign with your hand and place it on your chin. Place it on your chin. Your chin is right here. Oh, chin. Sorry. Yeah. See, this is what a lot of leadership gets wrong. They say one thing, but they do another. And part of my challenge, like in Japan, they're trying to work less and not have these crazy working hours.

And the manager says, Hey, please go home in a regular hour, but they stay until 9, 10, 11 pm So you have to do what you want other people to do. And then you have to celebrate. Celebrate what's aligned with your culture. If you. Want your culture to be strong. You have to get up in front of a team of people and say, Hey, look, bill did this and he exhibited exactly the kind of organizational cultural values we wanna see more of.

Right? And you celebrate those successes. So that's the kinda thing where you have to celebrate the successes that are aligned with what you wanna see more of in the. and then you need to make sure that you course correct people who violate those cultural norms to the point of firing your best salesperson.

Yeah. If they violate your cultural norms. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:19:55] Kimberly Wiefling: What's rewarded is repeated.

What's measured is what matters, and a lot of companies aren't even measuring things very meaningfully if you measure only financial results. According to a Harvard Business Review, I've seen lots of data on this. If you have only financially driven goals and metrics of success, you make 20% less money.

But if you say like, Hey, we wanna delight the customers. We wanna be a standout in the industry that other people admire and respect, and as a result of that, make lots of money, then you make more money.

How would you counsel me? Where should I start? What should I start

So I did this with an executive team about a year and a half ago, and they all said, well, here's what I care about personally. And then professionally, here's the sy. And then you have to figure out what is it that you as a team value more than money, more than status, more than ego. And if you have that conversation, you don't just talk about, oh yeah, integrity.

You talk about what does it look like when I'm in alignment with that integrity value and what does it look like when I'm out of alignment and what, how do I get back on track? And then you can create these agreements, right, of how we're gonna signal each. So the executive team starts off by saying, okay, here's the values we share.

Here's what it looks like, feels like, smells, like, tastes like, sounds like, and here's how we're gonna call each other on our behaviors to get back in alignment with these non-negotiable things. And that ends up creating these working together agreements. And Bill, most teams will never do this. You know what they call it in, in Silicon Valley when I try to get them to do this kind of thing.

Touchy feely crap.

[00:22:10] Kimberly Wiefling: Oh my God. So this is the cause of failure, but it's touchy feely crap. So I went through this exercise with about six hours with one executive team because they were dealing with c e O, who was. Maybe mentally ill and quite toxic and they were trying to protect their people from the negative influences of this.

You

Or then I would start a sharing library, Hey, bring some books in. And everybody, we. Give each other our books. I would just do stuff like that, or I would create social events. I didn't realize that I wasn't supposed to change the culture just because I was the individual contributor. There's always something you can do,

I wanna ask you a question. On your LinkedIn profile, you have a video. You talk about culture and leadership really specifically. Mm-hmm. , you say leaders act a c t, action, communication, thinking. So I love like, by the way, super simple, easy framework for our listeners. Could you tell us more here? Like why do those three differentiate leaders and how do they come together them for you?

It doesn't matter what that little nasty voice inside your head is saying, you know the voice that says 40,000 things, mostly negative. So you act like a leader. Do the things proven to make people believe you're a great leader. And some of them are things like ask for feed. The lowest practice of the 30 behaviors in the world is ask for feedback.

Yeah. About how my behavior as a leader impacts your work and then communicate like a leader. What does that mean? Well, the most important communication skill is listening. Listening, listening to ears in one mouth, use them in that ratio. And I'm not talking about listening to respond. I'm talking about generous listening, listening to people for three minutes to longer than normal, until it's physically painful and you wanna dig your heart out with a rusty spoon bill.

And when you speak. Speak about possibilities. Create a clear and vivid image of the future, that North Star that makes people wanna jump up and say, I got some ideas. That is the communication possibility, speaking and generous listening, and then thinking like a leader. You know what, bill? I honestly don't care.

So what does that mean? What does it mean to think like a leader, that you understand the difference between leadership and management, a group of people in a real team, and that you turn common sense into common practice? That is it. But even if you don't think like a leader, as long as you act like a leader and communicate like a leader and fake it, I don't mind how you think, right?

Fake it till you make it. I must be faking it cuz I sure ain't making it .

[00:25:59] Kimberly Wiefling: You don't have to feel competent. That's the problem, is that like we have this really low self-esteem voice in our head.

Just do these 30 things, the leadership challenge, check it out. You can find it online. Yeah, it's a wonderful book. There's a quick summary. Do those 30 things and people will think you're a better leader.

So we've talked a lot about culture and leadership. Who are the people that you have come across in your career and you say, I, I want to emulate that person.

And if anything could change what was possible. And then I talked to him and he was telling me, yeah, about his big vision, his big dream for the future of the company. And I told him, excuse me sir, but you're the only person who knows this. I've talked to 30 of your people and none of them, none of them know this.

And he looked at me and he said, that's my bad, Kimberly. That's on me. I admire that kind of person.

[00:27:13] Kimberly Wiefling: Not enough leaders like that in the world does not to have the humility to. Look in the mirror if aren't things aren't working. It's my responsibility if things are working.

It's my people's delight. Yes.

[00:27:36] Kimberly Wiefling: inspiration? You know, last week I live in Silicon Valley, and last week this group of people that went on a totally virtual seven month leadership program, they finally came to Silicon Valley to meet each other For the first time.

They were all working for the same company and they had never met in person, but they had gone through 68 hours of Zoom and seven months and done their amazing, impossible projects all virtually. They came to Silicon Valley for four. And they fell in love with each other. It was amazing to watch them interact.

We have people from Germany and from Japan and the US all standing together arm in arm. And I couldn't help but think last century, we were all at war with each other. And look at these people here. Purpose beyond profit, a mission that matters crossing borders and boundaries of every kind to work together.

To solve global problems profitably. That's what businesses do, solve global problems profitably. So I get inspired by them. Amazing.

[00:28:44] Kimberly Wiefling: If you can spell my name, it's waffling.com.

I've got a website. Kimberly waffling.com tells you more about what I do. Silicon valley alliances.com tells you about me and my global team of wonderful people. Or just call the police. They'll know where I am. .

[00:29:02] Kimberly Wiefling: right? Oh yeah.

I'm on Amazon, scrappy Project Management. It's such practical advice, and it is published in Japanese by NI business. I can't read Japanese, but I was told the jokes are not as funny. and I've got a whole bunch of other things. I wrote a book with my 12 scrappy gal pals about scrappy women in business.

This is something we really should talk about sometime, bill Women in Business. Oh my God, I saw this woman wearing a shirt. She looked like she was about 70 or 80, and she, the shirt says, I can't believe I'm still protesting this crap. .

Right. It's been great to have you on the show. Love the work that you're doing and I'm a huge fan and we'll continue to follow you and, and you know, I'd love to have you on the show some time. We'll talk about sort of the women of leadership topic.

I happen to be connected. The woman who's the founder and c e o of the biggest revenue woman-owned business in the Bay Area, which is now gone global. Amazing. I'm sure she would love

[00:30:16] Kimberly Wiefling: Oh yeah. Okay. Bill, thank you so much for making this happen.

Absolutely.

[00:30:24] Kimberly Wiefling: everyone. Thanks for listening to be customer led with Bill Stagos. We are grateful to our audience for the gift of their time. Be sure to visit us@becustomerled.com. For more episodes, leave us feedback on how we're doing, or tell us what you want to hear more about.

Until next time. We're out.