Welcome to the Carnival!

Do you recall visiting a carnival, either as a child, or an adult?

From the outside, it looks bright and cheerful with limitless opportunities. With high hopes of excitement, adventure, creativity, and new experiences, you enter the premises.

For the first few minutes, it all looks and feels great, but all that changes shortly after. A fellow visitor speaks improperly to you, making you feel like you are not good enough to be in the carnival. You shirk off the feeling and start exploring various activities that are happening in the carnival. You pay for an activity, say a game, or a show, or performing arts, but the output you receive is mismatched. You experience feeling cheated in the negotiation.

Shortly after, you feel you are being stared at and followed and that makes you uncomfortable. You feel worried about your safety and well-being. To divert your mind, you decide to ride a swing, but just as you are about to enter, the watch guard stops you because they believe you are not suited for the ride, with no justifiable reason.

Disappointed and annoyed, you decide it's time you raised your concern with someone. You look for an authoritative figure for help but can't find one! After much effort, you find someone, only to be told that "no one else has had a problem, and it's only you... so perhaps, you are the problem..." You are also told, that you shouldn't call foul play on such tiny things.

Disheartened, and having given up, you decide it’s time to leave the carnival, only to be told, that you can’t until a certain time. Feeling cheated, disappointed, and hurt, you connivingly make excuses to be let go in a rush, (successfully), no matter the cost,.

Argh, what a horrible day!

Now imagine this being your day, every working day of the week, the month, and the year. How does it make you feel?

The carnival is your workplace, the experience is the culture, which is made up of several elements - physical and experiential. It comprises of not just one but several encounters we have with our colleagues and leaders. The sense of belonging, pride, and security you feel as an employee, and the lack of it that sends employees off the firm with terrible lies, to never return in the future.

Culture isn’t the responsibility of just one person, but rather joint accountability of all elements in that ecosystem. Every touch point, every interaction leaving a progressive mark, a positive feeling...

The greatest of organizations do not thrive because of their unique products or services, or because they are high paying... they thrive because they are able to sustain a culture that embraces their people and truly represents their values.

The best of employees do not succeed purely because of the 'work' they do. They succeed because they foster a culture where colleagues feel safe and valued. They inspire innovation and courage to do better for the entire ecosystem, each day, every day!

Just in case you were wondering why there is so much hype about culture!

What kind of a carnival are you in?

How has been your experience?

More importantly, what kind of culture are you fostering?

?#culture #futureworkplace #inclusiveculture #EmployeeExperience