CultureSMART
Thesis & Process
Company Culture is the backbone of any successful organisation
Want to learn how to create a brilliant culture?
So how do you create a brilliant culture?
In this article you will discover the quickest and most viable way to impact the culture within your team or company.
If you are a leader or manager and want to create a fast, effective culture shift within your team or across the entire company and have a strong desire to leave an amazing legacy then this article is for you.
If you want to make to re-energise the culture but have no idea where to start this article is for you.
If you care about the employee and want to ensure they never have that sinking Monday morning feeling & you want to create a workplace that is stretching, meaningful and fun. Then this article is for you.
Our approach is start with your own direct team or if you dont have a direct team, then choose a team that you work closely with where the trust is high with the leader. Then once the systems are embedded in that team, you can use this as your shining examples and expand your influence beyond. Starting this way means you practise what you preach but also we see the ‘ripple effect’ where positive behaviour breeds positive behaviour.
The truth is, by being the culture agent of the workplace culture creates positive results. The agent makes sure the fundamentals are in place and then the focus, structures & practices that are designed around that, making it solid, engrained and part of the company DNA. The tough part is stopping the human mind from taking a bit from this thesis and bits from other ‘Guru’s’ and cobbling them together to create something that looks closer to Frankenstein’s monster, not a culture with a clear road map and positive momentum. By designing each aspect of the culture , the outcome is that all leaders, managers and team leaders have the same objective and can work to nurture and cultivate a common great culture.
Let the 10-step process within this Thesis be your friend.
Having worked with over 30 companies to develop their leaders and improving the culture, I know a thing or two about creating a great culture.
So today I throw every working hour into helping a small band of selected leaders to do the same. They are the leaders who have the responsibility for culture within their company, can be MDs, HR leads or Operation leads.
When I worked in Manufacturing plants, I did culture the hard way at first, bouncing from new fad to shiny thing, never really committing to one system long enough for it to bear fruit.
When I realised the error of my ways, I saw the culture and performance of the site propel forward. People who worked with us were more engaged and fulfilled. Others then asked for help as they saw how happy, hardworking and fulfilled our teams were. This is what I call the ripple effect.
The strong positive culture was my legacy, what I left behind when I moved on. What is the legacy you want to leave?
But be warned, the road to a great culture is littered with company tombstones and tears. Only the ‘all in’ survive which creates one huge variable – YOU and your dedication to the culture.
My advice is to turn back now if you are not 100% in.
If you are, then get ready, because life gets VERY interesting as you journey through the steps.
The 10 Stages to a Brilliant culture
Step #1 - Gather the culture Intel
Gather intel about the current state of culture to pinpoint the true starting point. What’s working and what not working. This intel can be gathered from multiple sources employee surveys, customer feedback, leave interviews, stay interviews or working groups or data - staff turnover, etc. This gives you good insight to the current state. If you don’t have any of these systems in place, don’t worry then just go out an ask some employees directly. The objective is to find the gems that you want to maintain and nurture and then the identify the detractors that you want to minimise or eliminate. In the CultureSMART program we provide you all the tools you need to have an effective and smart looking dashboard with no extra cost.
Step #2- Design the core fundamentals
This is foundations of the culture. Defining the Purpose of WHY the company exists beyond making money. This gives the employees reason and meaning to they work beyond making money for owners or shareholders. It a basic human need, humans want to have meaning. Next, define the Values - that’s what is important to the the company and what it values. This helps describe the personality of the company, it helps bring clarity and articulate what is important. This gives both employees and customers more clarity of what is important to this business. For each value define what Behaviours would show up if we were living at our best. Be clear - what behaviours are rewarded and what behaviours are punished.
Step #3 - See it, hear it, feel it
The fundamentals of Purpose, Values & Behaviours are brought to live by establishing ways where we see them regularly, hear them regularly and feel them. As humans we need to see it, hear it and feel it to embed it into the DNA. Looking at communication in the company is the first step to make sure this is live and living. Evaluate the weekly and monthly cadence and how the reinforce the behaviours you want to see. Consider integrating into newsletters, town halls, job descriptions etc.
Step 4- Culture SMART managers
Any person leading people in the company, whether team leader or VP, from boiler room to board room, are key to reinforcing the culture. Culture is defined by the lowest common behaviour that is tolerated by the company. Accelerating the managers to being CultureSMART managers will ensure the culture is positively and constantly built and reinforced. Positive behaviours breeds positive behaviour and culture ambassadors are key to this. Ensuring that managers ‘walk the talk’ and have the confidence to tackle poor behaviours not in line with culture is critical to building an outstanding culture.
Step #5 - Effective Meeting
How we convene and collaborate is crucial component culture. Ensuring our meetings are valuable, purposeful and effective is a key fundamental for a great culture. No time wasting, no one asking in their mind “why am I here”….no meetings that last for 2 hours or no clear decisions or actions. Doing a meeting detox to see which ones you “keep, dump, transform” ensures meeting time is used effectively and efficiently. Then build in systems to review meeting effectiveness will ensure its constantly being reviewed and upgraded.
Step #6 - Clear Decision Making
How do you make decision on your company? Does everyone know how decisions are made? How do you involve employee in decisions that impact them? Often companies are frustrated as they want managers to take more responsibility and come across apathy and lack of action- Employee don’t need empowerment they need authority. Be clear on what decision they can make and which ones they cant.
Step #7 - Psychological Safety
This is one that Leaders have heard of but often often struggle to define. Creating environments where employees can have candid and courageous conversations. Considering Execs know only 4% of the problems (check out the iceberg of knowledge!) , create environment where employees want to speak up and be encouraged to have those candid conversations. Have you ever checked out the iceberg of ignorance…recommend to google it!!
Step #8 - Rich feedback
Feedback is often seen as negative and as a punishment but when feedback is used, delivered and received in the right way it is how we help each other grow and learn. Imagine changing the mindset where feedback is considered a gift. Companies that have rich regular feedback with the objective to support people to learn have stronger cultures. Stage #1 is getting managers to “ask” for feedback, stage #2 is developing peer to peer feedback. Feedback is cheapest and most effective form of development. Consider how to get it engrained into the DNA.
Step #9 - Rituals to reinforce the culture
Rituals are this gorgeous unique things, that we do regularly, to evoke an emotion within our companies. Rituals can be designed to either enhance or discourage a behaviour but also cleverly integrated into the employee life cycle. Develop and embed rituals that reinforce the behaviours you want to see or discourage behaviours you don’t want.
Step #10 - Culture as a KPI
You will have heard “what’s get measured gets managed” we say “what’s get measured gets improved” improved and culture is not different. Whether its measuring how well established a successfull behaviour, or a deep dive employee surve or a short regular 3 question pulse, all these methods can be designed to provide incredible insight and measure impact. Measurement creates accountability and focus.. This ensures that leadership receives regular evaluations of the culture to asses where the company is at, in the same way that profit and cashflow are monitored.
