In his book The Culture Blueprint, Robert Richman suggests that at its core, culture is simply a feeling: the feeling people have when they interact with, work for, or buy from a company. This means that your culture is the result of experiences, and it is that experience that makes the impact, not information. You need to model your culture to make it real.
This is important because it means culture cannot simply be taught or told. It is shaped by who you hire, promote and keep. It’s instilled in your team through every interaction they have with your organisation – from recruitment, to onboarding to their ongoing development. Every conversation, email, Slack message and meeting reflects and reinforces your culture.
Read More: Company Culture: What, Why and How
Three key ideas about building company culture help draw this home:
Culture is not built through words.
It is built through actions.
Your culture is not defined by what is written on your website or strategy map. It’s seen in how you treat employees, take care of customers, interact with vendors and partners. Whether transparent communication is practiced. Whether diversity is pursued. It’s in what leadership does, not what they say (and in whether they are trusted to do what they say).
Leaders can sometimes think that they need to change others’ behaviour to improve or unify a corporate culture, but that evades accountability. Culture starts with the behaviour that leaders model themselves.
You cannot create culture.
You can only co-create it.
As much as leaders need to step out first in modelling the culture they wish to see, culture cannot be created (by trying to define, set and enforce it), but only co-created – allowing the group to organically take on and emulate the behaviours that will encourage it. People working or interacting with each other are always creating a feeling around being together, whether intentionally or not. While guidelines can be put in place to encourage a certain type of feeling/experience, it is up to the whole group to establish that culture as “inherent and endemic” rather than just a “temporary attempt that didn’t catch on”.
You cannot design culture.
You can only design the frameworks around the culture.
A company’s systems, processes and approaches to work create the practical framework and “guidelines” for what they’d like those experiences (and therefore the feelings, and therefore the culture) to be. This is your organisational design – the processes, policies and structure that allow you to put your culture into practice. Your practical approaches to engagement and performance help to encourage the culture you’d like to see.
Read More: Culture, Engagement, Performance: The 3 Keys To Building a Thriving Team
For example, if you want to build a culture of authentic communication, offer mechanisms for individuals to openly share ideas and opinions with team members and superiors. Or if you prize healthy relationships between team members, encourage team get-togethers, or simply include a few minutes of more casual connection at the start of each meeting. If you value whole self wellbeing, ensure you’re not consistently demanding overtime.
How Do You Put This Into Action In Your Organisation?
The above tenets each offer a point of practical advice for leaders looking to make a culture change:
- Make sure that you are modelling the culture you want to see.
- Include your team in the decisions, and the implementation. They’re the ones that will ultimately bring your culture to life.
- Critically evaluate what “how you run and support your business and teams” says about your culture. Do your processes, structures, policies, activities, etc reinforce or contradict the culture you’re trying to form?
Take the Free Culture Foundations Assessment
Whether you’re a CEO, a manager, or a team member, the FREE Culture Foundations assessment can help you put the right building blocks in place. It will show you where your team’s gaps are and give you actionable insights that you can share across your team. You’ll learn how to be a positive change agent – the hero that helps build a healthier, happier, more successful team!
Get It Right With A Team Success Plan
Alternatively, if you’d like closer input and the peace of mind that you’re getting it right, a Team Success Plan might be the thing for you. The Discovery process will review your current vs desired culture as well as the various frameworks of organisational design that supports establishing and living out that culture. Your personalised Team Success Plan then brings those findings together, with actionable pointers on how build a strong company culture, inspire engagement and boost performance in your team. You’ll walk away with a clear team development plan you can start implementing immediately.
Schedule a call now to find out how a Team Success Plan can help you build a strong, thriving company culture.
