“Only when we take our values off the wall and actually live them can
we say we have a strong corporate culture.” ~ Simon Sinek.
So much is being written about culture in the workplace. Every business magazine features articles and new books constantly hit the shelves. All adequately define what a “good culture” should be, using words like positivity, meaning, wellness, connectivity, engagement, cooperation, or supportive. But few delve into what it really takes to install a strong culture in an organization. As a result, it sometimes becomes a “flavor of the day”.
Culture is not words; it’s behavior. Taught, not inherent. It’s a delicate dance that can easily, and quickly, be diminished or destroyed. It takes work – a lot of hard, consistent, cross-functional work every.single.day. It has to come from the absolute top and be pervasive throughout every level of the organization. And, it must emulate your organization’s values.
The Challenge
Few leaders, especially new leaders, truly understand the challenge of building or changing a culture. Companies invest huge sums of money to define the ideal culture. Top brass usually spends days, weeks or months on coming up with the perfect description that sounds really good. Then, marketing takes over so it’s word-smithed and looks pretty. And finally, brass rolls it out to the masses, “Here it is. Isn’t it great? Now, go forth and culture,” never really putting a lot of thought or effort into how to explain and train it, install it, measure it, or propagate it.
Culture is absolutely not, “if I say it, it must be so.” It is an every day, every hour, every person effort. Period. The real irony is that the Latin origins of the word ‘culture’ are “cultura” and “colere” which mean…tend, grow, cultivate.
If you are a leader who wants to build or change your culture, here are my…
Top 10 Ways to Cultivate, Tend, and Grow Culture.
- It must come from your heart, and you must be passionate about it. If you don’t feel it, why should I? You must be able to articulate it in meaningful terms. Remember the “WIIFM” – What’s in it for Me?
- It must be simple. The more complex, the more room for skepticism. My snarky sarcasm meter (aka “BS” meter) goes off when it takes a lot of words to explain culture. Ideal, to me, is no more than 5 brief, meaningful bullets or better yet, 5 keywords.
- You must incorporate “culture test” questions in interviews to weed out, as best possible, those who will not fit or embrace your culture. Trust and work with your team to develop real-life scenario tests. For instance, if you have a culture of nurtured learning, “Tell me about a time when you were given an assignment of something you never did or didn’t understand. How did you handle that?”
- STOP hiring heads, bodies, warm bodies, FTEs! Man, I hate those words! Even “staff” can set my teeth on edge. Leaders hire and inspire people, colleagues, teams, and team members. Culture is behavior by people, not objects.
- You must establish culture on every new team member’s Day 1. Clear your calendar and write Day 1 in ink. No exceptions. It must come from YOU, and be the first thing they experience when they walk in and the last thing they remember on Day 1.
- Your team must understand their role in building and supporting culture. If I don’t know how it fits with what I do every day, how can I be sure I’m doing it right? And if I’m not doing it right, will you teach me or will I get dinged for it? Remember, there’s always skepticism – is this real or just words? You wouldn’t build a building and not give the carpenters the blueprints, would you?
- You need to walk it, not just talk it. I can’t stress this enough. Words are cheap, and easily seen through. If you’re talking it, I better see you walking it every.single.day. I will tell you being a leader “on stage” all the time is exhausting, and some days it just plain sucks and you want to throw in the towel. You must realize your team takes every cue from you….good, bad or ugly…every.single.clue. If you’re having a rough day or facing doubts yourself, you’d best plaster a damn culture smile on your face and keep going. If you’ve done culture right, your team will not only sense your struggle but rally you.
- Speaking of walking it…GET OUT OF YOUR OFFICE! You need to be where your team is, so they can see you living the culture. And, you can see where there might be stress points before the culture damn breaks open. The old saying that “cream rises to the top” doesn’t just fit a Wisconsin cheesemaker…Your team will only rise to the level of culture you visibly exhibit to them. Don’t be the leader that talks a good game but is clueless to what’s really happening on the floor. I worked in that environment at one time and it was a standing joke on the floor.
- You need to recognize & reward it, constantly, whether it be in words, actions, or “tchotchkes” (“chatch-keys” – they’re small prizes, for those that don’t know that word). Understand what’s meaningful for your team. Formal programs are nice, but every team member I’ve ever worked with has said a verbal, personal acknowledge meant far more than any prize item.
- Culture is behavior; changing behavior is hard for everyone. It doesn’t matter how young or old you are, what job you have, what company you work for….it’s just plain hard. It takes time to make new behavior a natural, normal occurrence. Think about the New Year’s resolution to hit the gym…and by March you can’t even remember which gym you joined. And as a leader, it takes patience….lots and lots of patience…and repetition over and over again so it becomes habit.
To learn more, I strongly recommend the book Start with Why by Simon Sinek. Very simply, he’s amazing.
I’d love to hear what you think. How’s the culture where you work? What’s great? What would you change? How would you change it? Let’s learn together…comment below!
