30 culture concepts that everyone in India needs to see, right now!

1. Rewards that matter

If you create reward structures without understanding the aggregate economic situation of your employees, you might just go horribly wrong by establishing too many extrinsic(money) rewards for employees who are not in the “need” for a little extra money, or you might create too many intrinsic rewards for a set of employees who need the little extra cash. In both cases, turnover becomes a reality when another company offers even a Little Extra of what you are not offering. Build reward systems by understanding what the majority of your employees actually need.

2. Positive past tense

If an organisation constantly rings with the “positive past tense” it’s time to consider a #culture review. When your employees are reminiscing a better time in life where things were better, it is important for leaders and managers to care about finding the micro cultural nuances that changed over the past few years.

3. Changing TIME

If you reward the amount of time your employee spends at office, people who can’t spend that much time in office will begin to note the amount of time that particular employee wastes in a day. Every time that “star” employee wastes a minute, a new wave goes by where people begin to give up on the idea of even trying because they believe that they finish their work and leave, and that is the right thing to do. So you will now have a bunch of employees who do not even try to go the extra mile in any way possible because they know, that the only way to get rewarded is to waste time in the day and then spend more time in the office later. The irony is that maybe that star employee is actually working hard and doesn’t really waste time, but the fact is, we all just see what we want to see.

So instead of rewarding the time spent in office, reward the work done, or the collaboration, or the relentless pursuit of learning new things.

4. MAIL away my thoughts

If people in your company email each other even though they sit right nextto each other, it is a sign that there are issues and unresolved conflicts in your organisation. Maybe you could consider changing the SOP on email communication.

5. Watchmen

6. Be more creative with recognition

When companies give recognition for certain set behaviours, you end up getting a few winners in every cycle. For eg. if a company recognises people who always meet their deadlines. Most times you will have that one person who ends up winning. What happens when you have someone in the same race who is too far to catch up with? You stop trying to win. No, this is not a comment on the laziness of the employee, but a comment on the recognition systems in place that do recognise 2–3 set behaviours instead of having a variety of performance indicators.

7. Hierarchy phrases that are toxic

“He’s/she’s a senior, he/she can do what he/she wants”

“Please behave according to your position”

“You are a junior, behave like one”

8. I do nothing

As a leader, if the board or the top management is not threatened by you leaving the company, you’ve possibly done a good job. Good leaders always make it look like they had absolutely no part to play in the success of the team. They always push their team members in front and make it about them and not themselves. Stop trying to be a manager for a company, try to become a leader for the people you work with, no matter where you are.

9. Rules over values

People are a mailed an induction handbook with the “rules and regulations” and no real induction into the company values or ethos. If you hire someone, make them feel like they are going to be valued, and they are more important than rules and regulations.

10. Review is a really negative word

Change what you call your growth planning meetings.

These email subjects are sure to increase the stress hormones in any human mind.

Performance review meeting

Team review meeting

Quarterly review meeting

Internal review meeting

Progress update people

11. Toxic phrases that are now in our subconscious system

Here’s what you hear quite a bit from a lot of people in the top management, across sectors in a lot of companies.

Young people are just spoilt.

Millennials are just too demanding.

In our time, we just took what we got and worked.

You don’t go to work to make friends.

People have become too emotional about work.

12. Work allocation

13. Stop trying to fancify your office

Spend that money on things that make the employees feel respected.

Most organisations believe that investing in lounges, foosball tables, game rooms and fancy offices will attract and keep valuable employees, instead of investing time and effort to create safe environments, where they are heard, respected and encouraged to be themselves and grow beyond their means. 1. Trust over Teak

2. Freedom over foosball

3. Mentorship over Macbooks

4. Respect over recliners

5. Empathy over Esports

14. Easy is not always better

People don’t want easy jobs, they want good challenges. Have you ever heard someone talk about how much they love a game because of how easy it is? i guess not, because as human beings we enjoy solving problems and winning challenges that most people cannot. The job of a great manager is to design employee experiences that feel like amazing challenges that are unique and will change their lives.

15. Be an vulnerable on purpose

If you really want your team to apply themselves more, think more and take ownership and responsibility, you need to openly admit that you don’t know the solution. Most times leaders are scared to be vulnerable because they think they will lose credibility.

The day you lose the need to be seen as a leader is when you truly become one.

Things NOT TO SAY:

1. I don’t know, this is your job, figure it out.
2. I’ve been doing this for years now, so you should_______
3. What do i pay you for
4. I don’t know, i don’t have time for this

Things you CAN SAY:

1. I myself have no idea how to solve this, let’s think together.
2. Damn that’s a tough one, what do you think we should do to solve this?
3. I don’t know what to do in this situation, do you want to look for some resources, references, best practices online and i’ll do that too.

16. Stress is good. NOTTT!

A little stress is good. A little stress everyday is harmful. Stress from feeling helpless and useless at work is toxic. Stress from feeling watched at work is worse. Stress from being criticised everyday a little, can depress a person.

As managers knowing what kind of stress is good vs bad is crucial.

Most managers say that stress is important, otherwise people will get complacent. What they don’t understand is that there is a huge difference between Group stress and individual stress.

Feeling stressed together is good, feeling stressed alone can be harmful beyond belief.

Language will play a large role on how to create an environment of positive stress vs toxic stress.

“Hey, this is super important, we can achieve great things if we get this right.”

“Hey, get your act together, stop wasting time, i want to see this by EOD in my email.”

Recognise your language. Recognise the stress you create.

17. Knowledge can be powerful

Most times when a manager does not understand what goes into the process of what an employee does, the employees either resent the manager for giving feedback or they resent the manager for not understanding how much time and effort goes into what they do.

People want a leader that understands their problems, their excitement, their breakthrough, their process and most importantly their effort. So does that mean you can’t be a manager unless you know everything?

No! it means you need to go the extra mile to understand each department, maybe take an online course in some of them, but more than anything else, be open to learning from them too.

We are all just children who need to talk to someone who understands our gibberish sometimes.

18. Scrapbook your people

Keep a book that has the names of all the people who are a part of your team, as section headers. Each time you realise that something worked for a particular employee, note it down. Note down how they respond to certain feedback, how they react to inspiration, how they talk about a particular problem.

Spend some time every week to analyse this information and design experiences for the individuals that will actually help them grow. Personalise your approach based on your understanding of them and not just an SOP.

19. Managing employee burnout

I think that employee burnout is a relatively new phenomenon because of the horrible work culture and leadership today. Working long hours is how a lot of the large companies created what they created.

The problem is not with the hours you put in, the problem is who you put in those hours with.

Being around friends and working together to achieve something great can seldom cause burnout, but if you work in an environment where you are alone, targeted, criticised and often picked on, then you will feel the burnout because you are there completely against your will.

The vicious cycle of increasing cortisol(stress hormone) and absolutely no balance with a dopamine hit with social engagement and play at work, your employees go through the day with that stress that decreases their speed, decreases their energy and eventually causing burnout.

As human as it is, we don’t love fighting alone, and especially not for a cause we do not believe in and a leader who does not deserve our respect.

20. Fri-yayyy

Last day of the week, most companies are turned into high pressure environments on friday because they need to finish everything before they leave for the day. Here’s the thing:

When you create an environment that is intense and not in a good way, you are sending someone with an impression, one that they are reminded of on Sunday night.

Find a way to make the last day so good that they are not depressed on Sunday night.

21. Lifestyle biased recognition

Sometimes the lifestyle of an employee might give them an unfair advantage. For eg.

1. Employees who don’t sleep much, and are always there at work early in the morning.
2. People who don’t have that many friends outside work, hence spend more time at work.
3. People who live very very close to work, which means they spend more time at the office and are open to staying back late when required.
4. People who live alone, more likely to spend more time at work.
5. People who have financial support from their parents, which enables them to be able to take more risks without worrying about the money.
6. People who come from families that are well connected, hence giving them access to clients on a personal level.

The point is, if you want all your employees to perform and compete, they need to feel like they are competing at the same level. Otherwise you will hear things like

“Obviously he/she was here, he/she lives next door”

“Obviously he/she got the client, his/her dad knows him”

“Obviously he/she stayed back, he/she doesn’t have to go home and take care of a family.”

“Obviously he/she was here at 8am, he/she is an insomniac.”

22. How to identify the coachable employees

coachable:

1. Lack of ego.
2. No interest in designations.
3. Gives credit even where it’s not due.
4. Actively listens and implements.
5. Learns from everyone.
6. Believes in the impact of collaborative effort.
7. Asks questions without caring about how it makes him/her look.
8. Vulnerable and open.
9. Does not have rigid belief systems.
10. Ask the questions that he/she knows the answer to, but wants the perspective of other people.

23. Right thing to do

Most cultures are built on these 3 action assessments.

1. Right thing to do.
2. Wrong thing to do.
3. Screw it, EVERYBODY ELSE DOES IT.

The unfortunate thing is that some bad managers create an impression among everyone else that there is no right and wrong, this is a grey area. When that happens, you basically have a bunch of people working for toxic managers who believe that they are doing really well.

Understanding how something became a norm is really important because it will define us after we take actions that are based on loosely shaped principles.

Here are some things that become “ALRIGHT” to do.

— Blame your employees for everything.

— Delegate because of laziness.

— Stay away from hands-on work because of your designation.

— Interact very little with your teams.

— Choose the ones that grow because of biases.

— Treat them badly till they quit.

— Leave for the day when your team is struggling.

— Write mails that are targeting certain employees.

— Publicly humiliate your team members.

If we all keep choosing the third option and do things that everyone is doing, we are sitting on a time bomb, which will have adverse effects when we are in a more vulnerable position in our lives.

24. Monday morning blues

Mondays are made to feel like a punishment for doing nothing for the last 2 days. Given the amount of judgement and rampant “lets get to work” conversations. It is IMPOSSIBLE to love mondays, even if you don’t hate your job.

People go to work drudgingly every monday, knowing that it just cannot be a great day, well, because it is a monday. The reason why people hate mondays is not because they want to stay in weekend mode, it is because they do not want to get into high pressure environments that overwhelm them.

Change the way they look at a the day. Monday:

Aggrrrhh 5 more days to weekend.

Can’t waste even a minute.

So much to do, such little time.

Nothing good ever happens on a monday.

Shift that with doing things like these:

1. Have a fun learning session like pechakucha on monday
2. Try a potluck lunch on monday
3. Let people come an hour late on mondays
4. Have a fun quiz on monday

If people walk in with excitement for the day, they will be way more productive than your pressure can influence.

25. Responsibility+Authority+Autonomy=Performance

Responsibility + Authority + Autonomy = Performance

The unfortunate thing is that we end up holding people responsible for tasks and goals, but leaders are scared to give their employees authority to delegate and autonomy to make decisions that makes them feel empoweredenough to give their absolute best to perform and achieve the goals they have been given.

26. Plan your meeting seating

If you want everyone in your team to contribute equally and not have brainstorms with just the same 2 or 3 people speaking, plan the seating of your meetings tactically. Most times the low contributing employees don’t contribute because they are caught off guard and have not got enough time to think of something.

Try this: Get your low contributing employees to sit on your right, it’s generally acceptable behaviour to ask people their thoughts starting from your left and reaching the right, clock wise.

This will give them enough time to think of a response and when it reaches them, they will be prepared with a response because they know they have no other option but to make a contribution in this situation. While making it compulsory to contribute, you have given them the time to think about their thoughts while others are speaking.

27. Bye, bye, bye

No matter who you are, say bye when you’re leaving for the day. Unfortunately most people are made to feel guilty about leaving before the other people there, so a lot of us just leave without saying bye to the people there.

If you are a leader and you’re leaving before your team, have the decency to ask your team what’s up, how much longer will they be there and ask them if they need help.

If you slip out without letting them know, you create a sense of disregard for what they are doing. It’s so simple, SAY BYE! Say it with a JOY.

28. Feedback is not your birth right

Boris Gomes on LinkedIn: "How did YOU feel?

Feedback is what shapes or breaks any individual and a lot of it depends on who’s giving it. Most of the turning points in our professional careers will happen when we get that piece of advice that we have never thought about or have never been told. The unfortunate thing however is that, in most organisations feedback is open and loose, left to the personality of the person, with no accountability for the feedback that you give. Hence, you hear things like “He’s/she’s in a good mood, let’s go get that feedback now” If you don’t see the problem with that culture, you are not trying hard enough.

When you add a system to feedback, you can build accountability in feedback, for EVERYONE.

Here’s a format:

Appreciation — — — — -even for trying

Suggestions — — — — — How i can help with it

Action points — — — — — how i can help with it

ideas — — — — — — — — — how i can help with it

When you need to think about giving feedback with the backdrop of how you can help with it, you won’t hear stuff like:

“This is shit”

“What were you thinking”

“Are you stupid”

I mean, you cannot really help by saying these things.

29. Replace should with could

30. Build trust

Build that trust. Here are some things you could do to build trust:

1. Greet each member and tell them one thing you find admirable about them.
2. Be considerate about their personal problems
3. Don’t leave till you say bye and ask them if they need help.(try to be there till each one of them has left.
4. Proactively find learning opportunities for the people according to your knowledge of their growth path.
5. Make time to listen to them.
6. Break some rules for them.
7. Find ways to recognise them beyond their professional achievements

Please,

please,

please,

share this on linkedin with the people who follow you.

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