“Corporate culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage that is completely within the control of the entrepreneur. Develop a strong corporate culture first and foremost.”
— David Cummings, Co-founder of Pardot
Every group of people that interact regularly have a culture. The question is whether it is explicit or implicit. Whether it is shaped purposely or just left to come about haphazardly is largely due to the efforts (or lack thereof) of the people who co-create it.
Ideally, organizational culture defines how we relate to each other and what to expect, it guides our actions, interactions and decisions.
What are the advantages of making it explicit?
It is easier for employees and other stakeholders to align themselves with the culture. We can also add aspirational aspects to push the collective into the growth zone.
In order to spearhead the organizational culture transformation as effectively as possible, the whole team needs to be involved in the transformation process from start to finish. The more involvement you have, the more buy-in you have in the end. The more buy-in you have from your team, the smoother the process.
Our co-creative Culture Transformation process has been honed over years to ensure maximum impact with minimal effort. The programme is designed in such a way that it is highly interactive and enjoyable, working as a team building exercise at the same time as achieving the more explicit goals of culture identification and transformation.
Email us to find out more or book a free discovery call.
It’s all exciting stuff. Let’s talk about it…
Our Unique Culture Alchemy Programme
We call it Culture Alchemy because just like an alchemist, we work with things that are everyday, seemingly mundane and turn them into something precious and durable.
Outcomes:
- Clear Culture Code with actionable Guiding Principles that makes it easier to hire for culture fit, easier to onboard effectively, and to create more congruency in your team.
- Effective and integrated activation ensures that all your stakeholders are aware of your culture, which leads to easier alignment
- Integration into existing HR processes and documentation, so the upgraded culture becomes second nature, an integral part of the organizational identity
Unfortunately what happens a lot when I ask companies about their values, vision and mission is that they point to a poster and say, ‘there they are’. This means they have paid lip service to the idea of building a culture but have missed the most important parts: the activation and integration.
Our programme goes deeper. We start with a status analysis. What is currently working well, what is not and what is currently missing from the culture?
Then we get the whole team involved, every person gets to have an input. And we dig deep to find out what the real values are, what really matters to your organization.
You want to have a clear and explicit culture that gives guidance to your employees at all levels. It will even inform your branding, your leadership and your hiring.
Our programme was designed – and honed over years – by Carolin Zeitler, our founder and Culture Alchemist.
Email us to find out more or book a free discovery call.
Organizational Culture Definition
Organizational Culture is basically what governs the interactions between everyone who works at an organization. It is built on values and principles that are sometimes stated explicitly, sometimes communicated implicitly. Ideally the purpose/mission of the company is the foundation of the culture, the vision is the North Star and the values are the pillars.
Just like a national culture, an organizational culture determines what is accepted and familiar behaviour within a group of people. Some of the ‘rules’ of the culture are explicitly stated, while others are implicit.
For example, the dress code at a company is often an implicit ‘rule’. Everyone knows whether they need to wear formal or smart casual clothes to work or whether it’s acceptable to come to work in jeans and a t-shirt. The same goes for the level of formality when communicating internally; you know whether you can address the CEO by their first name or whether a more formal approach is required.
Procedures for grievances and conflict resolution, on the other hand, are hopefully formalized, so that everyone knows where to go and what to do if they have an issue with their colleague or boss that they can’t resolve by themselves.
Organizational culture + brand identity = organizational identity
Companies are usually very aware of the importance of having a brand identity. Very early on, they usually hire someone to develop it for them. Depending on the depth of understanding on both sides, this can be anything from a logo with some guidelines on fonts and colours to be used, to an in-depth document that outlines certain key phrases, the overall ‘look and feel’ and the graphic design elements.
If it is done well, then brand identity and culture go hand-in-hand. They are two sides of the same coin. The brand identity faces outward, while the culture faces inward. There should be complete congruency between the two, so that the overall organizational identity feels authentic, vibrant and fully aligned.
Imagine if you have a brand that is all about community and love but the interaction customers have with your front-line staff feels stilted and heavy because there is no real culture of community, communication, and connection at your company.
Or imagine an organization’s brand identity is all about luxury but they pay their staff so poorly and don’t train them well, so they neither have the education nor the inclination to provide an atmosphere of luxury. Unfortunately, this is an example we see quite a lot in the world. It is refreshing to see organizations who do it differently, like the Ritz Carlton hotels, for example.
Why Culture Alchemy?
Overview of the Culture Alchemy Programme
Prep Step: Culture Gap Analysis
Before you start the programme, we highly recommend conducting the culture gap analysis, to create awareness of what works already and what you need to work on.
Introduction
An overview of what to expect as well as an introduction to the interactive and engaging course format that we have created especially for you.
Gathering relevant ideas, values and ‘slanguage’
The idea of this workshop is to gather all the important information that we need to write the foundation of the culture code. Since it is hard to answer questions like “What should our values be?” or “What should our guidelines for behaviour be?”, we take a more indirect approach in this workshop. We discuss a number of questions and play through a couple of scenarios to get this information in a fun and playful way.
You’ll be working in breakout groups and the whole thing will be highly interactive, fast-moving and quite inspiring. The two hours will pass before you know it.
Writing & Polishing your Culture Code
From the ideas you collect at the workshop, a designated writer then puts together a Culture Code. This manifesto serves to make your purpose and Guiding Principles explicit, to incorporate the aspirational parts of your culture, so that you can actively work towards them.
Activation: Bringing your Culture Code to Life
A document is not enough to change behaviour, no much how inspiring the creation process and the wording might be. In order for the Culture Code to come to life and become meaningful and real to every member of your team, it needs to be activated.
Just like the Code itself, the activation process is co-created to ensure that it is aligned with your culture and fits well into your daily routines.
Guided by the process, you nominate Culture Keepers/Guardians and they take turns implementing the activation process.
Integrating your Culture Code
The final step in the process is to integrate the culture into your HR documentation and processes, from recruiting to onboarding to reviews and offboarding, the culture needs to be woven into your everyday processes in order to truly become a part of the very fabric of the organization.
Email us to find out more or book a free discovery call.
How does leadership influence culture and vice versa?
I often do an exercise with the companies I’m assessing, where I ask “If you were to describe the atmosphere at your organization in terms of a weather report, how would you describe it generally and specifically today?”
The answers are all different, of course, but an example could be, “Generally it is sunny with a few scattered clouds, the temperature is warm and pleasant and we occasionally have a refreshing shower or two. Today, there are a few darker clouds on the horizon and it looks like a storm is threatening. The atmosphere has already become a little oppressive and everyone is waiting for the storm to break.”
This is often a way to find out more about what is going on without making people speak about specifics that might be difficult to communicate. You can use it even for a team or a department, just to get an impression of where people are at.
As an ethical leader, you genuinely care about the wellbeing of your employees. So you need to find out what they care about, what is challenging for them, what is working well for them and what they’d like to change.
Culture is co-created by everyone in the organization. You can’t dictate culture. What happens if you try is that you end up with a stated and a true culture and the two are often completely different.
The stated culture might be that ‘we are all family here’, for example, but the reality might be that there are a couple of toxic managers that are not treating their team members with the respect they deserve, that are pushing them too hard with unreasonable requests or demotivating them with their distrustful attitude.
Since culture and brand identity are basically ‘two sides of the same coin’, you will have issues with the way your employees are representing your brand to the outside if you don’t have a congruent and homogenous culture throughout the organization.
We have all been to shops or restaurants where a sales assistant or server with a fake smile told us they were here to help but we could very clearly feel that they would rather be anywhere else than here serving us right now.
Just think back to an experience like that. How did that make you feel? What did you think about the brand and the culture of the place where you had that experience? Would you be interested in investing in such a business or working there?
Now let’s imagine a different scenario: you have an issue with the delivery of an item you ordered online. You contact the support team and they are friendly and helpful, you get the feeling that the person on the other end of the line genuinely cares about your case and wants to help you resolve it as quickly and painlessly as possible.
How does that experience make you feel? What do you think about the brand and the culture of the place where you had that experience? Would you be interested in investing in such a business or working there?
These are just two very simple examples to show you what a huge difference culture and culture alignment can make to your customers, employees and investors.
So a great culture is much more than just a ‘feel-good factor’, it increases employee engagement, it ensures congruency in the customer experience and brand representation, and it allows you to better leverage the strengths of your team members, in brief: it makes a real difference to the bottom line.
Here are a few statistics to support this claim: “Companies with winning organizational cultures have 72 percent higher employee engagement ratings than organizations with weak cultures.
Nearly half of employees, 49 percent, said that organizational culture influences their employee experience more than their physical workspace or the technology they use.
Meanwhile, 38 percent of employees report wanting to leave their current jobs due to a negative organizational culture or feeling like they don’t fit in.
In the U.S., 35 percent of employees claim they would pass on their ideal job opportunity if the organizational culture didn’t appeal to them.” (from: https://builtin.com/company-culture/why-is-organizational-culture-important)
So how do leadership and culture influence each other?
Leadership, by definition, has to happen in a context. You need someone or something to lead, usually it’s a group of people.
Whenever a group of people interact with each other regularly, a culture evolves among them. Sometimes it’s an implicit culture; there are unspoken rules, everyone kind of knows what is expected, but a lot of it is guesswork, so you will have different interpretations and assumptions floating around. If you ask 10 people in an implicit culture to describe their culture, you likely get 10 different answers. There will be certain commonalities when it comes to the ‘broad strokes’ that define it, but everyone will have their own ideas about the details.
This happens because we all come with our own beliefs and past experience, and these create a filter through which we see the world. In an implicit culture a lot is left open to interpretation, so everyone will have their own view on it.
You might have a leader in the organization who is a bit introverted. One person, who is used to dealing with introverted people, might just go to him whenever she needs something and ask him a question, which he’ll be happy to answer. Another person might be used to authority figures who engage more actively in conversation. This person might not go to the leader when he has a question. He might expect the leader to signal to him that now is a good time to talk before he would say anything.
A small thing, but you can imagine how differently these two people would perceive the culture around ‘speaking to your superior’ in this organization. Person 1 would say that the leader always has an open door and is happy to answer any of her questions, while person 2 would say that he is unavailable and takes little interest in his reports’ opinions.
Can you imagine how those beliefs, in turn, influence the relationships that the leader has with these two reports? This depends on many more factors, of course, but one possible scenario would be that person 1 feels supported and heard – and is thus engaged and motivated. Whereas person 2 might feel they are just a number, someone doing a job that anyone with similar skills could do – and is thus disengaged and only does what is necessary.
You often see something similar in families: siblings who grew up in the same household at the same time perceive the ‘culture’ of their family very differently. This leads to them becoming very different people.
This is why it is so important to have an explicit culture. And while it is usually the leadership team who initiates a culture creation or culture change, it is essential that everyone who works for you feels represented. That means that either you actually involve every single person in the organization (if you have less than 100 employees that is quite easily done) or you choose representatives from every tier of the organization to be part of the process. We will talk more about what that process looks like in the following modules.
With an explicit culture, person 1 and 2 from our above example would both know that their leader always has an open door, because it is stated clearly in their culture manifesto and that would motivate someone like person 2 to approach the leader when he has a question or a concern he wants to discuss.
Let me ask you three questions:
- How do you ensure your team leaders and managers are utilizing proper discretion for the right decisions?
- How can you remain confident they’ll take risks that will benefit the company while avoiding the pitfalls that will inhibit growth?
- How do you know they’re managing their teams and projects with the priorities that align with your overall strategy?
The answer is: you co-create a culture manifesto for your organization. This manifesto provides a foundation for everything your people do; it will serve as a point of reference that will guide their priorities, decisions and work. Your culture manifesto states your big vision, your mission/purpose and your guiding principles (which are evolved from your values).
See here for detailed info on our Culture Alchemy programme.
“Leadership is the ability to translate vision into reality.”
– Warren Bennis
FAQs About Organizational Culture
What are some indicators of a strong organizational culture?
A strong organizational culture is one that truly provides guidance to all the stakeholders of the organization. If an employee is in a sticky situation and they need to quickly decide between A and B, their organizational culture should enable them to make the right decision on the spot.
This means that two important prerequisites have to met: the culture has to be so ubiquitously known, quoted and practiced in the organization that every employee knows all the guiding principles off by heart and the guiding principles have to be clearly formulated to aid decision-making.
Carolin has developed a guide to a strong organizational culture, which is TAILORED. Find out here what the acronym stands for and how you can make your own culture stronger.
How does leadership influence organizational culture?
Since most organizations still have some form of hierarchy, even though most now thankfully have a flat one, leadership still has a major influence on culture. Employees look at their leaders to see what kind of behaviour is deemed acceptable and appropriate.
So, to put it simply, as the leader you need to live the culture you want to see in your organization.
What do leaders need to know about organizational culture?
Culture encompasses all interactions your stakeholders have. It influences how you talk to each other, how information flows through the company, how productive your employees are and how effective your meetings are. So it naturally affects your bottom line as well.
Culture can never be static, it always has to evolve along with the company. The foundational values need to stay the same but the culture needs to evolve to reflect the growth of the organization, its leadership and the individual team members.
A Gartner survey of more than 550 HR leaders in July 2021, found that the top HR priority for 2022 is organizational design and change management (48%), which includes culture analysis and transformation.
What do I need to know about organizational culture and employee engagement?
The two are strongly linked. Employees feel engaged by a culture that aligns with their personal values and vision. So make sure to get the right people on board.
“Culture and engagement is no longer an arcane topic owned by HR. It is now an imperative for every leader and every executive in the organization. Many studies now show that highly engaged companies can hire more easily, deliver stronger customer service, have the lowest voluntary turnover rates, and be more profitable over the long run.” Deloitte stated in their 2015 Insights.
How long does it take to change organizational culture?
That depends on a lot of factors. Our Culture Alchemy programme typically runs over about 10 – 15 months to achieve a complete transformation that is really fully integrated into everyday rituals, routines and processes.
What are some indicators of a supportive organizational culture?
The biggest and most significant indicator are engaged employees. If your employees are highly engaged, then you have achieved a good alignment between organizational and personal values.
Is there a correlation between organizational culture and job satisfaction?
Definitely. Job satisfaction is at least partially dependent on culture fit. Working in an environment that allows us to live out our deepest-held beliefs is an important foundation for fulfillment. Work that is in conflict with what we truly believe in can never be fully satisfying.
How are organizational culture and communication connected?
Culture is basically a framework for communication. It defines how we like to communicate, what we find essential, what we find acceptable. In some cultures, it is acceptable to be direct and open, whereas others require a more diplomatic approach for example. Just like the traditional Japanese way to communicate differs widely from most Western countries’ approaches to communication, the culture in one organization will outline a strict communication protocol, while another might have a lax one.