Stop wasting time trying to label your culture…

Drennan best describes an organisations culture as “how things are done around here”.  

Organisations each year invest thousands of man hours and millions in capital trying to understand their culture and evolve it for the better. Having been a part of numerous culture reviews and improvement programs, I’ve concluded that there is a slightly controversial question to ask from the outset of any culture change program. And that is:

What is the point of trying to label you culture?

Let me start by saying that when talking about labelling culture as a part of an improvement program, I’m talking about trying to define it as a current state or starting with a catch cry of what you want it to become. We’ve all heard leaders trying to set a course for cultural improvement with statements such as we must:

• “Drive towards high performance to stay ahead of our competition!”
• “Incorporate risk intelligence into our culture to become safer.”
• “Evolve to a culture of continuous improvement or we will be left behind!”
• “Adopt a culture of agility and adaptability in these times of uncertainty.”

Don’t get me wrong, celebrating a label of what your culture has become in retrospect of any improvement program can be an unbelievably satisfying. Starting with it though I suspect is noise and time waster. My rationale is simple this.

How do you know that a cultural catch cry resonates and has a consistent meaning with those who are going live by it?

The answer is you can’t. Consider any improvement program where in-order-to hit a set of strategic objectives, leaders identify the current culture as an area of focus (i.e. lets reflect on the way things are done around here). Instead of beginning with cultural catch cries and expectation setting up front and what it should resemble, they begin with a simple assessment on the current approach to “getting the work done”.

A team of psychologists from “Mind Tools” in the US used empirical evidence and research to devise set of seven culture behavioural dimensions that can be utilised to understand key components of getting things done. Their focus was how people make decisions, how people organise themselves and what they rate in others when at the coal face. The seven behavioural dimensions are:

1. 1. Do you utilise rules and laws or relationships and situations in decision making?
   2. Do you rely on internal control or external influence in decision making?
   3. Do you value reason or feelings in decision making?
   4. Do you value the individual or the community?
   5. Do you value achievement or status?
   6. Are work and personal relationships separate, or do they overlap?
   7. Do you prefer schedules, order and punctuality or sequential activity and flexibility ?

Imagine these dimensions placed on a continuum and plotted by staff, providing discussion and focus on which elements are most important to them, the team and the organisation and what skews require attention and behaviour change to occur? It is pretty powerful.

At Workspring, we have created a simple cultural elements assessment tool and are using it in team coaching assignments along with other values and leadership style assessments. The structured results provide fantastic means of discussing what’s important and unique for them. It is fascinating to see that what is working for one team in one unique environment is seen as a gap or a shortfall in another. The discussion is far more effective than debating the validity of a label that is attempting to outline of what you are, or what you might want to become.

So next time hear a culture catch cry in your business or are a part of a circular discussion attempting to label who you are or who you want to be, turn attention towards what the word culture means, and how you’re going about getting things done. Label how you get things done later.