Changing the culture in your organisation - for the better

Culture makes the world go round

What is culture? It’s one of those questions that most people think they know the answer to but when put on the spot it is very difficult to articulate.

One of the best descriptions of culture that I’ve heard is from Lorne Rubis, who is a culture and leadership behemoth. 

In Lorne’s example, culture can be related to when you were a child and went to your friends house for the first time. 

Were you greeted at the door. Did you have to take your shoes off. What were the sounds and smells that you encountered in the house. Were the lights on or off. Were you allowed to play in the garden. Was there a buzz of activity or was it quiet and studious.

All of these things serve to make up what the culture is of your friends house. 

We can take this example and apply it to the business world by recognising one fact:  

Culture exists whether we plan it or not  

Whether positive or negative, good or bad, it literally exists whenever two or more people join up for any sort of unifying purpose. 

In many ways culture is all encompassing. It is well and truly a “big” idea.

Culture is defined by the way people work, interact and behave in every single conversation, email and meeting. It can be helpful to think of culture as the personality of the organisation—the combination of a company's history, vision, people, and environment.

As much as we like to talk about culture, read about culture and try to understand culture, there is only one way that we know how a culture is - we experience it.

Can we change a culture?

Cultures can be changed. It doesn’t happen overnight though.

As you may have guessed, culture is impacted by people and people want to know and feel. We’re not talking through court appearance inducing ways, but the way that people really know and feel about anything is through empathy and emotion. To get to this, the way is through communication.

As much as it pains us as finance people, we need to speak to our teams and colleagues and understand what we want the culture to look like.  

As we said at the beginning, a culture will happen around us anyway, so it falls on us to be intentional with the culture that we want to create. To do this we need to communicate the culture that we want for our team, department and organisation.

Valuable Values

A good starting point to be intentional with culture is values. What are the values of your team, department or organisation?  

The most common values that are talked about and included in corporate spiel include teamwork, customer service, integrity and accountability. 

Putting together a set of values helps clarify the behaviours that you want people to follow and therefore they set the tone for the culture that you want to build.  

Building values as a group can be a great way to build "the" team rather than a team. If you can all be aligned on the values that you are looking to put into place, not only will this bond you as a group of people, it will also ensure that you are putting in place the groundwork to begin working towards common goals and aspirations.

Again, communication is key to this process, as is including everyone in the conversation and getting the thoughts of all involved. This isn’t a time to pull rank and run roughshod over ideas and suggestions. You want people to be engaged and bought into the values that you finally come up with.

At this point it can be useful to split into smaller groups of 2-3 people to enable people who aren’t comfortable speaking in a large group format the time and space to also express their opinions.

When speaking about values and culture, it’s worth remembering that communication and clarity reduces assumption, which can only be a good thing.

Be yourself, you can't be anybody else

Another big part of culture is that people need to be comfortable to be themselves at work. You often hear of people putting on a work face and a home face but this shouldn’t be the case. If people can’t be themselves then how can you expect to create a real, genuine culture as it will be filled with people who aren’t being real or genuine.  

As much as possible we need to be real at work, authentic if you want, but we need to be genuine in all that we do.

It’s not about the pool table

Some organisations will try to take a short cut with culture.  

It’s easy to say you are trying to change the culture of a business by adding a pool table to the canteen, putting a table tennis table in the foyer, adding beanbags to the office, or creating funky meeting rooms. 

Ultimately, though, these are hygiene factors. They may add enjoyment to your day and aid employee engagement, but they don’t change a culture. They may play a part in improving the culture to some degree, but they don’t change a culture.

What we’re looking to produce is an extraordinary culture. One that doesn’t exist in most companies.

The underlying value we want to create is having a distinct culture. An extraordinary culture where everyone has a voice. Everyone feels cared for, valued and respected.  

As we’ve discussed already, every culture is different. It’s unique to your organisation or workplace. When employees experience extraordinary corporate culture they talk about it. It’s rare and when you experience it you can’t help but talk about it.

The elements of an extraordinary culture that make it stand out include it being:

• Pervasive – it’s not about just one department or one level in the hierarchy. The culture spreads throughout the whole organisation. For example, you don’t only trust and feel like you're in a safe conversation when talking to just your line manager, but other colleagues as well.
• Genuine – you can’t fake sincere care and interest. You know when a fellow team member is looking out for your best interest and when they’re manipulating you. When you care about each other on a personal level there is a team spirit that unites and strengthens the organisation.
• Unusual – a healthy culture is not common. Unfortunately, because it is so rare, you may be shocked to experience it. It takes time and effort to cultivate a healthy culture. Positive mindsets need to be cultivated.

To sum up, it needs to be remembered that one of the main elements of an extraordinary culture is having fun. It’s about having shared experiences. It's an inclusive culture where everyone feels that they are part of a single team.

So, here it is...

You’ve discussed your values. You’ve communicated until you’re blue in the face and everyone is being as genuine as they possibly can be. You’ve made sure that you’re creating an extraordinary culture for all the right reasons. Does this mean that the culture will now change? Of course it doesn’t.

Out of the things that we’ve discussed already there’s only one thing that will truly impact culture, and that’s to take action.

It's all very well talking about values and shared goals, but without action it's all talk and theory. Nothing happens, we pretend we’ve now covered off culture, but in fact we’ve played a game.

I once saw a memorable sign in a meeting room that said it all “blah, blah, blah….. Action”. The meaning being that nothing happens until you get off your backside and take action, and when you take action great things happen.

So what are you waiting for? 

Get off your backside and go and take action to change your culture for the better.

Robin Kiziak is an experienced finance manager with over 15 years experience in the distribution/logistics and retail industries