Does Your Culture Feel Like It’s Sliding Backwards?

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What It’s About: Building an extraordinary culture takes a lot of hard work. Because it evolves as a system, culture often emerges in continuous, incremental ways, and yet once it gains positive momentum, there is an almost palpable, confident wind in an organization's sails. For example, adding one small step, like implementing a recognition platform linked to values, eventually connects with the leadership system, and an extra culture pop happens. Along the way, a customer success story is explained through collective teamwork across once rival silos, and more culture progress is achieved. So on, and so on. Thoughtful leaders know that many of these connected cultural synapses do not happen by accident. They are intentionality applied with agility and humble wisdom, knowing that any cultural evolution is an incremental, relentless, often messy journey.

So What?: I remember a top executive saying to me once, “we could s%&t the bed for three years and our culture wouldn’t even notice.” I find that phrase disgusting at the best of times, and it could not be more wrong when it comes to culture deterioration. Culture can unravel negatively much faster than it emerged positively. Why? Because as organization cultures are systemically created, they deconstruct the same way. Considering the examples above, the once touted recognition system gets downplayed, and unhinged from the values it prompted. Hence the values of the organization become a secondary focus, or worse, a medium for the cynical. And that great customer sale that previously was touted as a victory for US, gets claimed by a ME (or the department). The same system that emerged collectively spirals downward dramatically. The once positive wind becomes a gravitational spin to LESS, and eventually toxicity. People start to notice and openly question “what's happened to our culture?”

Now What?: Smart and humble leaders realize that sustaining a forward moving culture can NEVER be taken for granted. The ability to have a thriving culture requires continuous focus and intentionality. So in an unintended way, perhaps the “s&$t the bed” analogy does have some merit. If you take it for granted, the culture muscle will atrophy. As challenging as it is to move a culture forward, stopping it from sliding once it heads south, can be even harder. And that is kind of crappy.

Think Big, Start Small, Act Now,

- Lorne

One Millennial View: Your organization either wants to invest in building a great culture, or it doesn’t, but we shouldn’t lie to ourselves and pretend it’s a focus when it’s not. If you choose not to, that’s your right. You might have difficulty retaining top talent, and productivity/results might suffer from unhappy employees, however that’s just part of the gamble. And I don’t mean that passive aggressively, it’s not tricky, but the truth seems to be that it takes intention/effort.

- Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis.

Does Your Culture Feel Like It’s Sliding Backwards?

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