NilaKanthi Ford writes:

How important is the right culture for your business?

Have you ever considered that the success or failure of your firm could depend on the type of culture your company has? Now I can already imagine people switching off or turning the page BUT this a not a fluffy, “nice to have” concept.

How easily can you answer these questions about your practice?

Describe the culture today? How would you make it evolve? What goals does your firm use to measure progress? Do you target and reward your team leaders based upon their ability to ensure that the correct culture is implemented successfully? Do your partners behave as they manage, do they “walk the talk?"

Today, you will be surprised how few partners and team leaders are able to describe:

•  Their firm’s strategy with the type of culture and behaviours required to support it
• Clear objectives for culture
• Progress Measurement methods
• Specific objectives for team leaders that are tied into the desired culture

All of these things are interrelated if you are considering improvements in performance!

Now is the time to work actively with cultural issues. 

Everyone talks about culture!  There is barely a mention of what we really mean when we say ‘culture’. This point is not just about semantics. It is actually pretty important.   Fuzzy thinking will lead to woolly actions.  This is sadly reflected in too much of the current activity around organisational culture.  So, why is so much imprecision accepted for something that is so important – the fundamental DNA of each and every one of our businesses?

So, what is Culture?

Without wishing to add to the debate, as a snapshot I would define culture in the following ways:

• Culture is acted out in the behaviours of everyone in your team, department and organisation.  It is continuously created by every member of your workforce just by their daily participation in the work your company does.  It is dynamic, shared and is reinforced by peers.  It is neither static nor unchanging.
• Culture is “how we do things round here”.  It provides team members with (largely unspoken) rules for how they should behave to gain and maintain social ‘membership’ at work.
• Culture is shows up in many ways in a variety of ways.  These include:
  • Approach to visitors at reception
  • Language –shared words, acronyms or descriptions your business
  • Rituals – meeting behaviours, company events, lunch and tea breaks
  • Dress code – how people are expected to dress at work
  • Symbols – job titles, name plates, corporate signage
  • Decision making – how company decisions are made and communicated
  • Conflict resolution – managing issues
  • Status- who is recognised and respected- formally and informally
  • Work environment

So, culture, or “the way we do things around here”, is created collectively by everyone in an organisation.  Behaviours and actions are then guided by the shared culture.  Peer groups behaving in ways required by the perceived “OK culture” legitimise and reinforce it further.

Culture is continuously changing. It is dynamic.  It is created by many.   It is not something you can take out of a box.  You may have an aspirational culture with supporting behaviours but every single day you are re-inventing it!   If culture “happens” between the members of your workforce every day (not from one central point) then effectively changing culture and sustains the new direction is a big task.  It requires a critical mass of people consistently ‘transmitting’ the new culture.

Every year, businesses invest millions of pounds to make projects and change happen – studies show that less than 2/3 of these projects deliver their intended benefits and nearly 20% fail outright!  The business impact of this is staggering.

Beyond the obvious financial impact, change fatigue and frustration will increase, and businesses can’t afford this waste of effort, time or resources.  So, what is driving these rates of failure? There are some common misconceptions.

Fallacy 1:
“We will have a workshop, do some Team Building or have a Social Event. They are great ways to Change Culture “

• Sending employees to a workshop or to attend a team-building or social event will not change your culture. Culture is DNA not superficial. A couple of events, I call it the “sheep dip” will never create any kind of lasting, strategic change.

Fallacy 2:
“HR can change an Organisation’s Culture”

• HR cannot hope to engineer culture change single-handed. You cannot have change imposed on an organisation. It has to be created, and then supported, by everyone.

Fallacy 3:
“It’s better just to get on with it”

• Generally speaking, people want to do a good job. They are so keen to get into action, with trying to make things happen, that they often under-invest in preparation and planning. There is no clear purpose, game plan, desired outcome or engagement strategy.
• The impact of this can be the opposite of what was intended – developing a culture with increasing resistance to change.
• Without a clear purpose: people will ask – why are we doing this? They will work towards their individual aspiration which may, in fact, conflict with what was intended. A culture of many not a single culture.
• Without a clear game plan with desired outcomes, work gets duplicated, inter-team dependencies aren’t recognised, tasks are overlooked (I thought they were doing it), there are no dates to deliver by with a whole range of things that may or may not be delivered. A culture of confusion.
• If people are not engaged, they won’t be motivated. Without motivation to change, nothing will last. A culture of ostriches with their heads in the sand! I always encourage my clients to “touch, move and inspire” their people in order to achieve a desired purpose.
• When Leaders under-invest in planning, they will pay the price later.

Fallacy 4:

“People are born managers”

• Just because someone is technically good at their job, it does not mean that they will make good managers. Leaders need to ask themselves, do their managers have the support they need? Does the team understand what “good” looks like and what behaviours are required to deliver it? Does the manager have people skills? Do they “walk the talk”? Do they recognise that the people side of changing culture is more important than the project task list?

Fallacy 5:
“More is best”

• There will never be a shortage of projects –Everyone is overloaded. Execution will be erratic. People will lose interest; get bored and leaders will grow impatient. New initiatives are launched in addition to existing ones. Nobody wants this.
• Companies are good at starting new initiatives, but poor at stopping them. Leaders need to invest in the active management of their people. Every business activity MUST be aligned with business strategy and desired culture.

So there we have it.  A few thoughts to consider before you opt for an easy option the next time one of your partners say something along the lines of “we need to create a culture of accountability” or “ we need to create a performance culture”.  Remember there is no magic wand, no shortcut to improving your success rates.  By investing up front, AND DETERMINING THE organisational culture you require to underpin your desired strategy, you can create the real foundations for success.