Have you ever played “Bull**** Bingo?”

It’s a game where you identify “buzz” words spoken during a meeting. Once you’ve checked off your list, you yell “Bingo!” And just like Community Hall games: the faster you declare victory, the more dissatisfied your meeting participants are.

Over the last fifteen years, the purpose of my Bingo card has changed. These days I’m interested in the words commonly used within my business that can/will be interpreted in multiple ways. It’s a lead indicator that we’re losing our focus and often precedes a significant decline in behaviour.

You’ll notice that I didn’t use the word “culture” there. Culture is on my Bingo card. Behaviour is not. That’s because culture is an ecosystem, not a “thing”. If I try to address the culture of my organisation, I’ll fail. If I address specific behaviours, I’ll succeed in influencing my business’ culture…over time.

Behaviours must be described in pairs: what I currently observe (and don’t like) and what I want to observe (what I do like). Employees and business partners must contribute to these descriptions if I want them to engage and be equipped to measure behaviour change. Measurement can be as simple as a tally sheet – “what behaviour did I just observe?”

So how do behaviours relate to words on a Bingo card? That comes back to business fundamentals:

1.       What is the value my business delivers?

2.       How do we deliver that value to market?

3.       Which combinations of “what” and “how” are most productive for my business?

If I know the answers to those three questions, I can identify where the Bingo terms have infiltrated. And that’s a great place to start learning about new profit/behaviour risk within my business.

If you’d like more detail, contact michaelpartis@collabor8.consulting for a no-obligation discussion.