The Power of Culture

And why it is okay that you aren't for everyone

This summer and fall have been full of wonderful engagements with exceptional clients. I have been so impressed with their ability to meet the difficult work of culture development head on. It is not for the faint of heart. It requires vision, exceptional alignment, courage, and an unlimited amount of grit. 

While I deeply believe in the value of collecting feedback via culture surveys, I also feel that senior leaders often skip very important steps in the process. They are quick to collect the feedback but very slow to do anything with it. Why? Culture feedback is just like personal feedback. Not all feedback is created equal and you have to know who you want to be before you go looking for it. Without that clarity the data gathering process can often lead to frustration.

Culture is a set of collective attributes where everyone has a role and impact. However leaders often abdicate their responsibility in setting the tone and guidelines around it. When this happens a few outcomes are possible.

1. An organic culture emerges where people generally feel valued and respected. This is very rare but it is possible. Usually these are small organizations. The culture will feel pressure if any growth occurs. 
2. An organic culture emerges where the dysfunction of the founding/senior team and or the inability for the founding/senior team to set direction leads to an undefined culture where toxic behavior is accepted and even in some cases encouraged. 
3. An organic culture emerges and the organization notices when things aren’t going well. They collect feedback from the organization. They are unsure what to do because they have such a wide range of feedback. The senior teams may fixate on one thing like remote work and fail to act in a cohesive way to set a clear and defined culture. They write policy and procedures in an effort to respond to the feedback. While this maybe seen progress and positive intent the shine quickly wears off and another issue arises.

There is an alternative. It requires a high level of patience and the ability to stay in difficult conversations. This is a process of developing a culture framework that creates clarity at all levels of the organization. The critical component of this work is a senior team that is willing to set a clear direction, a place to start the work that can cascade through the organization with each level working at increasing levels of detail. 

The second step is to acknowledge that the culture may not be the right fit for everyone. This does not mean that there is something wrong with either party, it just means that there are different needs. Thinking we can create a culture that will work for everyone is like expecting every date you go on to result in a love match. That would be a ridiculous expectation. So is thinking that your culture will work for everyone. It is important that the organization is clear about what they want to be. Until that work is completed it will be difficult to do any holistic culture work that is sustainable. 

The exciting part of culture development is combining the  science and art  of alignment to create something exceptional.  If the basic and predictable human needs are met in  your culture there is plenty of room for creativity to make it unique. It is worth the effort, trust us.