The Culture Rots From The Top

The people at the very top of a company have an ongoing opportunity to change anything or anyone within a culture that’s not deemed to be working. They’re not just influencers, they’re the architects of their company’s cultural environment. They have the unique ability to reshape any aspect of the culture that’s not working.

But with great power comes great responsibility. When it comes to setting the tone for culture, the buck stops with those at the top and a failure to take meaningful action will have lasting consequences.

Let’s take Uber as one?—?very high profile?—?example.

In early 2017, Uber was one of the first organisations to be publicly outed for its culture, starting a trend that has only intensified since. A former employee wrote an article about the harassment she (and others) had faced, that HR and senior management refused to act on.

A report in the New York Times highlighted technology that Uber was working on that was designed to deceive law enforcement. A competitor sued the company for corporate theft and if all that wasn’t enough, co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick was recorded berating an Uber driver, Fawzi Kamel, in a video that went viral. In the same video he also boasted to the other people in the car about the fact that he deliberately creates a ‘hard’ working environment.

By June and in response to investor revolt, Kalanick resigned. At that time, he was also dealing with the death of his mother in an accident which also saw his father seriously injured. During his leave of absence to care for his father, Kalanick penned a 2,000-word note to himself (which was published by Gizmodo in September 2019) about the crisis and what he would do differently. It’s a fascinating insight into his way of thinking and working, and contains some degree of regret for the toxic culture that he himself created. One set of comments particularly stood out for me:

• “I put growing our business ahead of properly scaling our internal culture and organisation.”
• “I favoured logic over empathy, when sometimes it’s more important to show you care than to prove you’re right” and finally;
• “I focused on getting the right individuals to build Uber, without doing enough to ensure we’re building the right kind of teams.”

This kind of thinking and behaviour is not unique to Uber. It may be prevalent in your organisation right now and the people who can fix it and become catalysts for change are those at the top.

Toxic culture is the biggest risk to every organisation, regardless of size, industry or country. It can destroy lives, results, reputations and the organisation itself. Ignoring it won’t make it go away and a different approach has to be taken if the organisation is to truly change.

Detoxing the culture requires every leader and manager within an organisation (and I do mean everyone, from the board to the CEO to the managers who run day-to-day operations) to be committed to living the organisation’s values and demonstrating the expected behaviours. Only then will others take inspiration and do likewise.

For decades there has been an underinvestment in culture, with words such as ‘fluffy’ still prevailing in companies that haven’t yet caught up to its importance to either employee or organisation health. My role as an independent consultant working with an organisation for the first time is to find out which of these they’re most concerned about.

Is it the employee health statistics?

• One in four people dreads going to work
• People with high levels of work stress were 22x more prone to suicidal thoughts
• Odds of suffering a major disease increase by 35–55 per cent.

Or the organisational health statistics?

• Employee turnover triggered by toxic culture costs US employers alone nearly $50bn each year
• Extremely disengaged employees are 20 per cent less productive than their engaged counterparts
• Culture is 12.4 times more likely than compensation to predict whether an employee leaves.

But here’s the kicker. Investing in deliberate culture building not only mitigates these risks it also unlocks potential for fantastic results. According to recent research, 92% of CEOs now understand this, yet, only 16% are doing anything about it.

So, leaders, it’s time to step up. Your employees are watching, and they’re not afraid to call out toxic behaviour. Remember, culture doesn’t just impact your bottom line?—?it shapes lives.

My new book ‘Detox Your Culture: Deliver Results, Retain Staff and Strengthen Your Organisation’s Reputation’ is available for pre-order now! Be the first to get your hands on this game-changing book. Click the image below to pre-order your copy?now.