3 Game-Changing Strategies to Claim Your Cultural Superpowers

Last week's edition of Culture Craft peeled back a layer on a not-so-secret business evolution that often gets mismanaged: beyond the 150-headcount mark, your culture naturally morphs from founder-led to distributed, from a one-person show to a community production. It’s as inevitable as gravity.

A transition like this one is very tricky, and very few get it right. The main reason is that scale-ups and other high-growth companies scramble to hire talent at break-neck speed, focusing predominantly on technical skills. This approach leads to a jumble of skilled individuals who aren't necessarily in harmony with the company's desired culture or long-term vision.

This is where a 'strong signal culture' becomes crucial.

A strong signal culture is not about being louder about who you are and what you stand for; it's about being clearer.

To effectively shape and sustain your organizational culture, it's crucial to first articulate it in clear, actionable terms. This means digging deep to discover the unique cultural DNA of your organization – those inherent qualities that set you apart and fuel your success. Once identified, the next step is to strategically scale these elements across different functions and geographical locations, ensuring a cohesive and robust culture.

In this piece, I'll detail three pivotal strategies for achieving this.

1. Identify Your Unique Cultural Superpowers

Researchers from Booz Allen Hamilton and Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program found that most companies espouse almost identical values:

• 90% reference ethical behavior and use the word "integrity".
• 88% mention commitment to customers.
• 76% cite teamwork and trust.

Are the above values important? Sure. But the problem is that they could be a potential fit for ANY company. And that's precisely why you'd be much better off avoiding them.

Generic values are merely a licence to play. Your core values, however, should be idiosyncratic enablers of your success.

In other words, your values and the remaining elements of your Culture Playbook (your purpose, vision, mission, core desired feelings, a stunning colleague, and a great leader manifesto) should signal how you differ from other companies in your industry.

Daring to Be Different

As humans, we are genetically programmed to form tight-knit communities with a strong sense of uniqueness, connectedness, and belonging.

Our brains are wired to look for how our tribe differs from other tribes. It's our way of ensuring the survival of our species. Without unique, strong, stand-out values, we lose our ability to develop a true sense of belonging.

Our need to be a part of a unique tribe is just as important in the workplace as it is in our personal lives. Generic values don't inspire a sense of community, nor do they help execute strategy or attract and retain top talent.

Focusing on Your Superpowers

Your values and the remaining elements of your Culture Playbook should also be uniquely positioned to help you drive business results and execute your strategy. They are not a nice-to-have; cute quirks that make you standout from the crowd - they need to be a must-have when it comes to what's required to bring your vision to life.

Identify those elements of your culture that make you stand out and that drive your strategy and business objectives. Your values are meant to be idiosyncratic enablers, not cookie-cutter cliches.

2. Engage the Entire Organization in the Process of Codifying Your Desired Culture

Codifying your desired culture into a Culture Playbook that describes the most powerful, idiosyncratic enablers of your mission and vision is not a job for one person. Or a handful of senior leaders whipping up something catchy during a retreat. You have to engage the entire organisation in the process.

Tapping into the hive mind of your entire organization and harnessing the collective wisdom of your employees will help you to develop a culture that reflects the authentic values, beliefs and behaviors that are important to your business.

Interviews

To engage your employees in codifying your culture, you can start by interviewing people from various parts of your organization.

For the best representation, make sure that the people you interview are a diverse group of individuals from all parts of the organization and all hierarchical levels.

The data you collect from the interviews will be a valuable source of information when you are ready to start crafting your Culture Playbook and creating a snapshot of your current culture. To get a list of questions that we ask when we support clients, click HERE.

Storytelling

You can also encourage employees to share stories and examples of behaviors that they believe represent the desired culture. I have developed a process called the Fireside CHAT, that enables companies to capture the narrative backbone of their culture in a fun and interactive event.

Here are the main stages of the process:

You can read more about the types of stories to collect to codify your company culture HERE .

While you want to engage the entire organization in the process, there are two groups to pay particular attention to:

Working with the Culture Squad

The Culture Squad is a group of individuals that can reliably represent their colleagues and work with you on codifying and activating your desired culture.

In a scale-up, the best size for this group is 10-12 individuals. To pick the right individuals, look for people who are:

• Social hubs (well-connected with colleagues across the organisation)
• Role models (trusted by their colleagues both on account of their skills and expertise and their integrity and the way they embody your desired culture)

The Culture Squad is a group that will be actively engaged in codifying your culture at each stage of the process. They will also be your biggest allies when it comes to activating and embedding your culture code.

Working with the Senior Leadership Team

Last, you will need to work with the entire SLT. Their role is to give the context for the whole exercise and identify or refine your company's:

• Purpose
• Mission
• Vision

3. Align your Culture Playbook with what your business truly needs to be successful

The essence of the art of creating a relevant Culture Playbook is zooming in on those cultural attributes that will make you and your people successful now and in the future. Not all of the cultural attributes identified through your interviews and storytelling should make it to the final version of your Culture Playbook.

A good exercise to run with your people is the old, good START, STOP KEEP. Ask people to anonymously answer these three questions:

1. START - What are the currently missing mindsets, practices, beliefs and assumptions that we'll need to develop to thrive in the future and to bring our vision to life?
2. STOP - What are the currently existing mindsets, practices, beliefs and assumptions that no longer serve us and that we need to leave behind to thrive in the future and to bring our vision to life?
3. KEEP - What are the currently existing mindsets, practices, beliefs and assumptions that we need to preserve and nourish to thrive in the future and to bring our vision to life?

Final thoughts

The three strategies that I shared will help you claim and scale!) your cultural superpowers by creating a perennial Culture Playbook. Your playbook will be an indispensable tool for your organization when it comes to recruitment, onboarding, driving performance, and more.

Creating a Culture Playbook is not a one-time task. It should be seen as a living document that evolves as your organization grows and changes. Encourage your employees to provide feedback on the playbook and to suggest areas where it could be improved.

Making the Culture Playbook a collaborative effort allows you to identify areas that need improvement and make changes accordingly. This approach also ensures that the playbook remains relevant and useful for employees, which helps to maintain a strong culture over the long term.

Want more?

Need support on your journey to create a Culture Playbook? Apply to join the CultureBrained? HERE . We offer a one-of-a-kind Culture Accelerator Program that empowers you to create and execute a Culture Strategy Roadmap for your scale-up. You'll be surrounded by outstanding peers on the same journey. Unsure if it's for you? Watch our community members share their experiences ??

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