For a new generation of boards, culture comes first

Over the past twenty years, I’ve had the privilege of working with hundreds of executives across dozens of teams in countless organisations. I’ve had two wonderful, long-term employers. I’ve coached leaders who have inspired me, and many who haven’t. The single red thread that has run through everything I’ve done has been culture.?

For much of that time, when I was leading People teams, I accepted the premise that culture was somehow My Job. A project, a programme, something to be tackled by a dedicated team, with a start and an end point. Twenty years later, I’ve come to realise that for as long as an organisation treats culture as an initiative, it will fail. It is the only sustainable competitive advantage completely within the control of the organisation. It’s woven into every conversation and embedded in every decision, however mundane, at every level of an organisation.

Culture isn’t one aspect of the game; it is the game.?

For the next generation of high-impact Boards of Directors, a concentration on organisational health must move up the board agenda with an urgency that we have not always seen to date. Removed from day-to-day operations, crises, and requirements for immediate decisions, boards can take advantage of their longer-term perspective to look above the fray and to play an active role in defining the culture, watching and tracking it, and in leading by example. Board metrics and agendas should include measurements of the success of the culture, with the ultimate responsibility of holding the firm to its cultural performance standards just as it does to its financial goals. Remuneration Committees hold specific responsibility for implementing a reward system which supports and encourages behaviours that are consistent with these cultural performance standards.

Anything that is measured and watched, improves.

Ultimately, the culture of a company is the sum of the behaviours of all its people. Treat employees like they make a difference, and they will. Appoint board members who are experienced in managing Gen Z, and they will guide you well on how organisations must evolve as new generations enter the workplace. A board who recognises all this and builds a people-centric organisation will see the benefits through employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and profitability. A board who acknowledges that, regardless of their individual brilliance or revenue-generating potential, a firm cannot retain leaders who are not on board with the cultural principles of the firm will reap the long-term rewards of these short-term tough decisions.

Culture is what you tolerate.

As I transition into the next decade of my career, I’m making an active choice to take everything that I’ve learned about organisational culture and leadership through twenty years as an executive, and to use that to broaden my impact across multiple organisations as a non-executive director at board level. I couldn’t be more excited about this next chapter.