What do these have in common? Vitamins, an orange, and a shot. I'm going to say they all help strengthen our immune system. We talked about earlier about cultural immune systems. We're going to talk a little bit more about that. After this video, you'll be able to understand culture as an organizational immune system and name and identify three Rs and their role in strengthening culture. We're going to use the orange in further detail and talk about the three Rs which will help strengthen your organizations cultural immune system. Let's look at each of these one at a time. The first R is respect. From a definition standpoint, I think we know what it means or we think we know what it means. But let's look at specific things that show are we being respectful or not. Some specific examples. One is direct communication with positive tone and non-verbals. Many times you'll hear in good communication words are just a small part of the overall communication process. It's the tone and non-verbals that often telegraph how much respect we have for the other, or lack of respect. This is important when trying to develop a strong culture. Some examples of non-verbal certainly are rolling your eyes and a tone, it's a sarcastic tone, we've all heard this. It's important that we directly communicate good tone, good non-verbals. The second one is active listening. This is one of my favorite signs of respect. When people feel you're with them and you're there, it's a sign of great respect. There's a great phrase I once heard called, listen with your eyes as well as your ears. If you have the eye contact when you're listening, it shows that you're really with a person and attentive. It's a sign of great respect. And I think there's some cultural differences in this too where that's so important. Appropriate use of technology. We need to look at technology as we get more and more technological in how it impacts respect. Many times you'll be in a meeting, people are texting, not paying attention. That goes back to active listening. I see it in the classroom, people texting, using computers. It's a sign of disrespect and I've heard people say that many times, they're not listening to me, they're not showing respect. This is really important. Technology is a great tool, but let's not let it get in the way of respect for others on our teams in our organizations. Inclusion, inclusion is a great sign of respect. Anytime we exclude people, it communicates a lack of respect. So make sure you have a culture that's inclusive. Trust, trust is also there. Showing trust is one of the highest forms of motivation, and I think one of the highest forms of respect that I trust you. Let's look at another R, responsibility. This comes at several levels. Personal, and that's one I think we all have a responsibility to maintain some awareness of our own actions, our own comments, and how they impact others. It's so important that we take personal responsibility of our actions and how we behave toward others in a respectful culture that we want to create in our organizations. Managerial, same thing. Our words and deeds matter. But on the managerial level, it matters more. Because we have people who look up to us, whose lives we have in our hands as far as their careers, and building their careers, developing them as employees. It's important that managers understand their role and responsibility in creating a civil, positive culture. And at the organizational level, this goes one step farther. Responsibility to all of our people in our organizations but also to the communities we live in. So, a great part of building a strong positive culture is that all levels we take the responsibility to do the right things and treat people well. Restraint, this is an interesting one that we threw out here, and I think you'll agree with some of the concepts here. First of all, skill regulating emotion. You may have heard this concept. The idea that we can regulate our emotions, we are capable of doing those things. Let me say I give you a few more examples that might be a little bit more illuminating. Think before you act, I always heard this as a kid. I mean, this is part of restraint. Before I do something, think about it. Will my actions hurt others, will they help others? This is part of showing restraint and being respectful. I have a friend who's a psychologist once told me, you don't have to say everything you think and she told that to her clients a lot who had trouble with regulating emotions. Think about it and again, this feeds into a little bit before you act. But just think about your actions. Another one of my favorite parts of restraint is act on our values. If I'm acting on my values and I value other people, whether it be my family, my friends, my coworkers, I want to act in accordance with my values. And if I'm about to say something hurtful or unkind, that's not the kind of person I want to be. That's not my value system. So a great way of keeping sort of restraint and check on your emotions is to really think about, is this the kind of person I want to be? Let me summarize by just talking a little bit about the 3-Rs again. One was respect, we talked about the importance of respect in an organization, and how crucial it is to strengthen your immune system. The whole idea of responsibility at all levels, personal, managerial and organizational. And lastly, restraint. That we really want to look at acting in our values and how that makes a difference. If we act in our values, I'm going to maintain that you will probably do a pretty good job of building respect in a positive cultural organizations. So, I mentioned I had a cold. I'm going to strengthen my own personal immune system with this orange. Perhaps you'd like one too. [SOUND] Whoops!
