Chaos Eats Culture for Breakfast

Every person in an organization is ultimately responsible for co-creating a dynamic, productive culture. But culture is perceived as nebulous and people are distracted, stressed and uncertain about the future. And yet, we cannot allow everything to crumble. We need to keep working. What if we can actually get better results with less stress despite everything we face? We can.?

In the next few weeks I will publish a series of posts to tackle the most challenging topics related to culture, along with pragmatic recommendations for making improvements.??

It is the CEO’s job to ensure that the preconditions are set for success and empower every single person within the organization to participate in this process. If you have ever displayed the ubiquitous “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” slide during a presentation while secretly wishing you understood what culture really is, this series is for you. If you perceive culture as managed mainly with jargon, catchy group exercises and slogans, this series is for you.?

You will learn how to think differently and much more efficiently about culture so that you can shape it, and you will learn that it is possible to immediately improve stress levels and increase the likelihood of collective and individual success. But you have to do something different to get there, and some of the ideas might challenge your established notions.?

Culture Shift

I wrote the introduction to BUSINESS CULTURE DESIGN after years of partnership between Science House and The Culture Institute in Zurich.

At Science House we work directly with teams on their most high stakes initiatives, the kinds of projects a CEO mentions on an earnings call. I instantly recognized the value of Culture Map when Dr. Simon Sagmeister (pictured below) came to Science House to introduce me to his system of color-coded clarity for the seven dynamics present in every culture.

In the years since, Science House has mapped countless companies across industries and then worked with many of them to make significant changes. The trends in the current state and desired future state Culture Maps were so clear, we created practical interventions for some of the most predictable problems. Because people spend so much time in meetings, for example, we created Model Meetings to deliver immediate, pragmatic results in organizations claiming to want more learning, innovation and faster, better decision making (you can join the Model Meetings LinkedIn group here). Currently, many people spend most of their time aligning to complex tasks without full clarity around constraints and the decision making process that led to the creation of the work. ?

We even mapped Amazon back in 2015 after an article about the company’s culture appeared in The New York Times. Amazon responded by inviting me to give keynotes to senior leaders and technologists within the company to push them harder to think big about NOT becoming a typical large company. I’m not here to defend Amazon, but I will say that my week on a glowing, grassy mountaintop in Washington State with this group showed me firsthand how the company has become what it is – for better or worse – and how they manage so often to decimate the competition before their opponent even recognizes peril.

If you click on the Amazon link above and review this Culture Map and the ideas it represents, it will start to acquaint you with the method. You might not agree with the assessment. A few years have passed so my own thoughts have evolved. I highly recommend that as you learn about the dynamics of Culture Map you take note of the ones that feel natural to you, as well as to those that push your buttons. The dynamic that most rankled me turned out to be the one I most needed to learn about in myself, and in fact unlocked an entirely new way of thinking about the role of leaders.?

The pandemic catalyzed a form of remote work that can only be described as triage, compounded now by social chaos. But the truth is, organizational problems existed before this acute phase. The upheavals we face will intensify. The only real option is to take the opportunity to remove the obstacles that made work stressful, slow and frustrating already. I will be writing a series of posts about this topic, because culture is not one monolith within an organization. It is nested and overlapping. The way companies have approached culture for years now has created many misperceptions about what culture is and how it functions. Remember, integrity was one of Enron’s core values. Writing a word on the wall or a website doesn’t make it real.?

For today I want to put one idea in your mind. Over the coming weeks we will parse this out and see what can be done about it.?

The days of bringing the whole person to work may be over.

And maybe, if we are being honest with ourselves, those days never started. I know this idea will not be popular, especially after years of encouraging people to “be yourself” in professional settings. But hear me out. I am not suggesting that we hide who we are. Far from it. I am suggesting that we protect ourselves and our shared interests by shifting the professional culture to focus on achieving shared goals in the least stressful way possible, which dramatically amplifies personal well being.?

In the coming series we will explore multiple topics including:?

• What is culture, and how is it layered within an organization so that each role appropriately establishes clarity and constraints for direct reports?
• What was the current state and desired future state before the chaos of the pandemic and social upheaval fractured the workplace? What is it now?
• How can DEI initiatives be protected and, most importantly, amplified if we are not “bringing the whole person to work” at this time?
• How can we take advantage of the chaos of the moment to become even more connected and yet at the same time achieve more with less stress?
• What are some of the established ways of thinking that no longer serve companies, workers or society, and how can we responsibly cultivate a new mindset in the most efficient way possible???

This initial post is intended to spark a meaningful conversation. If you have questions related to the topic of making culture tangible so it can be managed and transformed, leave a comment below. If you are in a position to do something about it within your organization and want to discuss ways you might proceed, feel free to get in touch.?