Chooks, Kowloon and corporate culture

Many years (and many companies) ago, the CEO announced he didn’t “believe in corporate culture” as he shut down our revitalisation program. At the time, I was rendered speechless.

Here’s what I wish I’d said...

Corporate culture may be intangible, but it’s also all pervasive. It can attract or repel talent; it can facilitate or block innovation; and it can drain or bolster the bottom line. You can choose to nurture and cultivate it, or you can choose to ignore it and let the weeds take over. Either way, corporate culture will grow.

Example 1: the chicken coop

Until a recent fox massacre (a story for another day), we had chickens in our backyard.

Chooks are all about the pecking order. Ours operated under a traditional hierarchy, with the largest, most aggressive hen calling the shots. While productivity was always patchy (they were, at best, ambivalent about laying eggs), they lived in relative harmony.

That is until one day, when the top hen started pecking Chicken Jo. What began as a sporadic tick, escalated over the weeks until all the chooks were attacking little Jo who became almost featherless.

The lesson? A top-down approach comes into play if there’s a strong (overpowering) personality at the helm; but its success relies on the leader’s behaviour being impeccable. It also breeds a team of followers rather than fostering collaboration and accountability. A healthy culture needs to have lots of advocates, not a tyrannical ruler.

Example 2: Kowloon

The Walled City of Kowloon was a densely populated settlement north of Hong Kong Island; it flourished for 40 years until its demolition in 1993-4. What began as a Chinese military fort, evolved into a squatters’ village and eventually became a miniature metropolis. On a block of just 6.4 acres, its population of around 33,000 was densely packed into a topsy-turvy knot of interconnected high-rise buildings.

Caught between China and the British-run Hong Kong, the city was officially ungoverned and lawless. Police and government officials wouldn’t enter its walls, there was no garbage collection, no postal delivery, no connection to utilities. It existed outside official influences and assistance. Dystopian? Perhaps, but the place flourished. Kowloon was a commercial hub with its own butchers, dentists, hairdressers, a rubber factory… yes there were also opium dens and criminal elements (despite efforts to clean these up in the 1980s), but its organised chaos also housed a vibrant community. It took five years to evict its residents who passionately fought to stay. ?

The lesson? culture doesn’t just bloom in a petri dish. A collection of people can’t help but create its own ethos. If a walled city or business unit doesn’t buy into the official rules and culture, the abyss is quickly filled by its own leaders and norms. If you don’t build it, it will build itself.

Corporate culture

Corporate culture is undeniable. You can see it, you can feel it, and you can't fake it. Whether it’s the henhouse or a multi-national corporation, culture shapes our experience. And it can either work in our favour, or work against us. Insider trading, sexual harassment, workplace bullying… these things rarely happen in a bubble.

It’s not about writing a pretty vision statement and plastering it on the wall. It’s not about saying the right things or just hiring the right leader. It’s about our individual and collective actions.

Whether you shape it from the top, passively let it grow outside your influence, or empower your people to actively contribute and shape it, all groups foster their own culture, and a corporation is no exception.