Culture: Why Give A ****? Top Ten Things You Can Do Right Now & Why It Matters.

Yep. I said it. A culture expert laying it out there because some of you are thinking it...and even if you aren't, shouldn't we be constantly questioning this? Just like the photo- we likely need to do a quick self-awareness scan. Do you ever attempt a marketing or sales strategy once and brush your hands off thinking "I know it's important so I made the time. Done. Check THAT off my list!" If you do, you probably want to go back and check on that... ??.

If there's one thing I can promise, it's a devil's advocate and occasionally irreverent (okay, you got me...more than occasionally) approach to things I'm passionate about. I learned this pretty early on in my corporate career. As someone who's naturally strategic and intuitive (don't worry, I lack in many other areas), I approached presenting most ideas and suggestions from a place of feeling and instinct. I got hit with some tough pushback from top leaders pretty early on wanting to see the proof and the data and why they should care - even if it was the right thing to do and this reason seemed enough for me. Now I play devil's advocate regularly- with myself, my team, my leaders... even when it's literally talking clients out of paying me more money because it won't actually serve them in a practical way. Why? Because I love VALUE above anything else. What do people get out of this? Is it going to make an impact? Can we see it, feel it, touch it, and measure it? Granted, some things we might genuinely do because they're the right thing, even if it doesn't benefit us. And I encourage those decisions too. But we better be pretty clear and aligned if that's what we are committing to and the "why" behind it.

And because I like value so much: Stick around until the end and I'll provide you a list of our Top Ten Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW To Enhance Your Culture.

Alrighty...diving right in! I'm going to share why I think we should give time and energy to culture in 2023:

• Companies with a strong corporate culture see a 4x increase in revenue growth compared to companies with a weak culture. (source: Harvard Business Review)
• 47% of organizations who have very successful company cultures saw significant revenue increases in the past year compared to just 9% of those with less successful or unsuccessful company cultures. (source: Arbinger)
• Toxic culture is 10x more likely to cause turnover than compensation. (source: LinkedIn)
• Disengaged employees cost companies 18% of their annual salary. This translates to roughly $60 million a year for companies with 10,000 employees at an average salary of $50,000. Statistics about corporate culture and productivity show that highly engaged employees are 17% more productive.
• The average increase in net income for companies with performance-enhancing cultures is a staggering 756%. On the other hand, companies that do not nourish culture reported a net-income growth of only 1%. (source: Forbes)

So looking at that last data point, let's tie it back to focusing on something at only one point in time and then checking it off the list. You start your company. You hire people you know by association or have worked with before. You nurture them and because you're small and made up of people you trust, you can be hands-on, they feel comfortable giving honest feedback, they give 100% because they have a personal relationship with you, and you're able to create a great culture. Everyone's happy, everyone's engaged and receiving 1:1 attention, feedback, and accolades. You continue to grow and win with this strategy and you feel really good about yourself for having built an amazing culture with very little turnover. Now the focus shifts to increasing revenue, enhancing operations and processes to support growth, investing in more marketing, etc. because you have a great culture and don't need to worry too much about that anymore. It's natural, we've been here, our clients have too. This is a wonderful place to be. That's not sarcastic, I mean it, and I know you put in a lot of genuine effort to make it here. Here's the problem though.... your business is made up of people, serving people. People grow, evolve, and change regularly. So does your business. Everyone's needs shift in and out of time, circumstances both personal and professional, the market, generations, etc. You know your business has to evolve with time to stay relevant, so why do we not believe the same about culture?

This is not a "build it and they will come" Field of Dreams type of deal... Please tell me in the comments if you're someone that's ever reached near perfection after a first attempt...in literally anything haha. Go ahead. I'll buy you a beer and send you a virtual high five because you're a savant! And yes, as noted above- it greatly impacts your bottom line. Notice the stats from Forbes didn't say anything about poor or toxic culture. It said those who leverage culture to enhance performance achieved 756% net increase in income vs. companies that do not nourish their culture. Do you like money? I do! And I'd like to make more to be able to serve and do more. And the best way to do that is to invest and nurture my people, their well-being, and thereby my culture constantly and differently as the people, market, society, and business needs evolve and change.

To get you started towards winning the war on talent & culture, I'm going to offer 2 things in honor of my first newsletter:

1. Top 10 List of Things You Can Do Right NOW to Enhance Your Culture
2. An invitation to learn more strategies and walk away with complementary tools through our one-time Culture Impact Challenge the week of October 23rd.

Top 10 Things You Can Do Right NOW to Enhance Your Culture:

1. Clarify Your Core Values: Ensure that your organization's core values are well-defined and communicated clearly to all employees. Make sure they align with your mission and vision. These should tie back to behaviors you can coach too- not vague statements that sound great on a plaque.
2. Lead by Example: As a leader or manager, your behavior sets the tone for the entire organization. Demonstrate the values and behaviors you want to see in your team. Check yourself regularly. When you make decisions, think through what you preach others should do and do THAT. Hold yourself accountable and reward others for doing the same.
3. Communication: Foster open and honest communication throughout the organization. Encourage feedback and actively listen to your employees' concerns and ideas. Find different ways to facilitate communication that appeals to multiple styles and personality types (i.e. don't put "Introverted Ida" on the spot in a meeting and think all is well because she didn't have much else to contribute).
4. Wellness Programs: Implement wellness programs that support physical, emotional and mental well being. This needs to be customized to your team and the individual to be effective. Effective wellness programs can average an ROI of 6:1 but just like culture... without proper implementation this can be a wasted effort with minimal participation. Options can include fitness initiatives, stress management workshops, personal wellness goal setting, and access to counseling services.
5. Recognition and Appreciation: Recognize and appreciate your employees' contributions regularly. This can be in the form of verbal recognition, awards, or other rewards and incentives. Implement a recognition program to make this a habit, recognizing when employees are living/exemplifying your organizational values and desired behaviors. Create physical cards or eCards that employees can give to each other for recognition, incorporate recognition into team meetings, research recognition software to award badges, points, etc.
6. Employee Development: Invest in the growth and development of your employees. Provide opportunities for training, skill-building, and career advancement. Your business can't grow if your employees are not growing with it! Consider a mentor program, soft and hard skills training courses, cross-training opportunities, development workshops, pay for professional certifications, etc. By the way...are you training your hiring managers regularly on HOW to interview and hire properly? If not, you'd be like most companies and this is a HUGE miss- they're filtering your newest culture adds for crying out loud!
7. Diversity and Inclusion: Create an inclusive environment where people of all backgrounds feel welcome and valued. Ensure diversity in hiring and promotions. Ensure that your website, careers page, etc. actually reflects the diversity of your leadership team. When someone visits your page or searches to learn more about your organization, do they see that they could be successful and a valued part of the team?.?
8. Work-Life Balance: Promote a healthy work-life balance. Encourage employees to take breaks, use their vacation time, and avoid excessive overtime. Ensure psychological safety at the top, setting the example of work-life balance with your senior leadership. Survey your team on when and how they work best and allow them, within reason, to create a plan that benefits their optimal productivity. The remote vs. hybrid vs. on-site argument is so controversial because people are trying to "fix" things at a broad level - ignoring the part of the research that shows engagement tied to these changes is positive when it's decided at the team level.
9. Team Building: Organize team-building activities and events to strengthen relationships among employees. This can improve collaboration and morale. This can be company-wide but tends to be more effective on the team and department level and customized to the interests and availability of your employees.
10. Feedback and Continuous Improvement: Create a culture of feedback. This is especially important for the Millennial generation! Regularly gather feedback from employees on the company culture and areas for improvement. Seek feedback regularly via surveys, focus groups, in 1 on 1 conversations to collect input from employees on things they would do to improve culture. Giving feedback (both positive and constructive) is equally important. Recognize instances in which individuals or a team is living organizational values. Use this feedback to make continuous adjustments and enhancements. Define desired cultural behaviors and share insights/examples on ways employees/teams can do a better job of living cultural behaviors and values. Whatever you do... DON'T DO NOTHING!

Like what you read and want to learn more about tangible impacts of tying culture to your bottom line? We share much more about moving culture from an elusive idea to a tangible strategy that lives and breathes with your organization: Join our Culture Impact Challenge ! Live Streaming Daily. Must Register to Join!

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