Culture 101

Culture is a very misunderstood word.

Here’s what many think it is:

• Foosball tables

• Dress-up days

• Cool offices

• Free snacks

Aka superficial, fun things.

Here’s what culture actually is:

• Controlling vs. empowering managers

• The degree of transparency

• Taking ownership vs. blaming

• Having direct conversations vs. avoiding

• Reliability and trust

In other words, really substantial, get work done, things.

While having cotton candy is nice, having a reliable team is better.

Culture is how a group of people thinks and acts.

It’s the sum of actions, not idle words or superficial perks.

Words, alliterated values, promises alone = Fantasy.

Actual actions = Culture.

If someone had a glimpse inside your organization, culture is what patterns you’d notice. It’s behaviors that are trending.

Is the boss a control freak? Are there some really untrustworthy people that many try to avoid? Is there an elephant in the room that no one is allowed to mention? That’s culture.

If you want to think of culture in different terms, think of it as the work environment, the internal strategy or the method of operating (MO). Culture is the way in which you will get work done as a team, whether intentional or otherwise, to achieve business results.

Culture leads to business results

If you improve the actions within your organization, you improve the culture, which means:

• Attract talent

• Reduce turnover

• Increase engagement

• Increase innovation

• Get better results

That’s the value of being intentional with culture.

Results come with investment

Many companies make the bare minimum investment in culture/people. The goal is the minimum effort to keep people working.

• Values are placed on the wall that sound really nice, but not followed.

• A $50 gift card is given to recognize endless hours of work on weekends.

• Employee surveys make it seem like they're listening, without actioning.

• An annual performance review gives a single chance a year to somewhat talk.

But that's not how culture works. You invest in people, you invest in the working environment, and you invest in preparing leaders to lead effectively.

And results follow. The results you get are directly related to the investment you make with culture.

Invest minimally in healthy culture and employees will respond accordingly. They will give their time alone, and not a lot of their will.

It's bare minimum engagement. Bare minimum effort. Bare minimum ownership. Bare minimum innovation/creativity.

If you want the best contribution from all, then investment into being intentional with culture is the only way.