Changing A Culture Doesn’t Have To Be A Mammoth Task

Organisational culture is defined as “the ways in which people in organisations behave and the attitudes and beliefs that inform those behaviours” according to the Harvard Business Review.

The culture is about how people feel in an organisation. It’s formed over a long period of time and yet it doesn’t take much to bring down a culture (like some of the leaked information from insiders at Uber over the last few years).

And a good strong culture is one of the most important assets to an organisation.

But like with anything in these rapidly moving times, an organisation’s culture has to shift and adapt with the times. Culture shifts are being demanded by the workforce - inclusive cultures with diverse leadership are big drivers for top talent according to Glassdoor. And lack of culture progression leads to disengagement, retention issues, less innovation and ultimately a loss of competitive advantage.

When culture can be linked and connected to high performance and DEI, the impact on organisational longevity and the ability to differentiate is huge.

And that’s where many organisations become unstuck.

Because culture change and adaptation seems too big. Because it is largely based on intrinsic things like feelings, attitudes, values and because in the past it has been difficult to link to commercial value; many organisations do nothing. Hope for things to blow over and improve themselves. Hope that because they are just about hitting their revenue targets, that things are ok.

And I think this short termist view point with commercials being the number one driver, at the expense of everything else, has had a huge impact on culture (but that’s a newsletter for another day).

Culture change doesn’t need to be a big firework in an organisation.

It doesn’t have to replace all of the great work that teams and individuals have done to drive inclusivity, create psychological safety and leverage the diversity of thought and ideas.

It can be small, consistent steps.

When I have these conversations with chief people officers, L&D directors or even chief operating officers, I can see a weight fall off their shoulders.

Culture change has become so overinflated, such a mammoth task and the risk of getting it wrong so huge, that teams have become slightly worried when they hear the term culture change.

Because culture manifests in the daily actions.

And a huge driver for a positive culture is through engaging with leaders like yourselves. Leaders of the future. To ensure you feel included and know how valuable you are in creating and sustaining an outstanding positive work culture. It’s the role-modeling of positive actions that really and truly change culture.

And this is exactly what we have done with a large UK charity we are working with.

• We involved the teams in identifying the issues and challenges with the current culture and how that was preventing them to where the charity wanted to get to

• The teams co-created a new vision, mission and values and we ran these past all stakeholders and customers to ensure it was relevant and accurate

• The leaders and their teams are breaking own the values into behaviours which will then influence processes and structures. We will then come together as a team next month to align, discuss and create a roadmap for change.

And it’s those behaviours that are exhibited everyday that will really change how people feel about the organisation. Those behaviours will determine the expectations for them and the value each and everyone of them bring to the success of the charity.

So I’d love you to think of 2 daily actions that you can do over 5 days that will drive a more positive culture in your team. You can see this as a bit of a ‘culture improvement sprint’ and can reference this if you feel a bit uncomfortable making positive changes.

Some examples that I’ve seen leaders successfully implement:

• Add feedback as an agenda item to meetings (a la Netflix) to allow diverse voices to be heard and to drive continuous improvement

• Provide real time practical feedback to a colleague - steering clear of emotions and focusing on the task and the impact and suggestions for improvement next time

• Focus on your own career development - define your next career goal and create a plan to implement. Role-modeling continuous improvement and ambition helps your team to see that this should be important to them and you can help guide them.

Do get in touch and let me know your insights and the impact that this had once implemented.