Every man’s ability may be strengthened or increased by culture - John Abbot
More than ever culture is a crucial factor in successful businesses, particularly businesses that thrive on creativity and innovation. Organisations with a healthy culture can entice, recruit and retain talented people, motivate and empower them to perform at their absolute best, and provide opportunities for them to grow.
Conversely, an unhealthy or toxic culture can lead to difficulties retaining talented people, a lack of collaboration and innovation, and a stagnant, poor performing organisation as a result.
In this post, I want to explore the notion of culture and share some of the things I have found to be vital to a healthy organisational culture.
Organisational Culture
Culture is a social construct comprised of values, beliefs and norms that influence the thoughts and behaviours of the people associated with it. For this article, I will focus on organisational culture specifically, rather than culture in a sociological context.
In organisations, culture is more malleable - with exceptions of course! - and can be influenced directly and indirectly by the members of it. Organisations can also possess multiple cultures or sub-cultures that span multiple teams or departments.
Organisational culture has garnered more and more attention in recent decades as businesses have realised its value and importance. It's been the subject of research and books since as far back as the 50s gaining popularity in the 80s and 90s.
3 Key Ingredients
The culture of an organisation (or team or department), can be influenced. This is where leaders come in. Leaders can advocate and promote cultural norms they wish to ingrain into the cultural fabric.
Below are three aspects of a healthy culture that I strive to cultivate in my teams.
Empowerment
Empowering people is extremely powerful. It supports the notion of freedom and self-determination, strong motivators in human behaviour. It also imparts trust which to many is a precious commodity.
So how can leaders empower people? That's easy... get out of way. No one likes to be micromanaged. As leaders, we strive to hire talented, capable people. Why would we hire someone we trust to do the job, then tell them how to do it, especially if they are often better qualified to do it in the first place?
That is not to say we clock out, hit the pub and let chaos reign. Our role as leaders is to provide the direction and whatever the team needs to be successful. We might get more involved from time to time (I'll write about situational leadership in a future post!), but for the most part, we want to set the teams course, supply the provisions, and then get out of their way so they can do what we hired them to do.
Trust is essential to empowerment. Leaders need to trust their people to make the right decisions and take the right actions. They might well get it wrong sometimes, but that's OK - the next key ingredient will touch on that! But every correct decision and action builds their confidence. Every poor decision or action helps them learn. Ultimately they become stronger, more capable... they grow.
A final thought on trust; it holds an intangible value. That means some perceive trust placed in them as incredibly valuable. The act of doing so can become a source of motivation because they want to prove the trust is not misplaced. What might be more important though is the trust can be returned. Trust placed in a leader is invaluable. It has an overwhelmingly positive effect on the relationship by boosting loyalty and cohesion.
Empowering an individual can yield some benefits, empowering an entire team, department or organisation can be transformational.
Safe Space
A common feature of a toxic environment is a "blame culture". One surefire way to stifle innovation and silence good people is to permit a culture where those people fear being blamed for failing.
For innovation to thrive, people need to feel comfortable trying things they aren't sure are going to work. It's an iterative process involving trial and error after all. Creating an environment where teams are not afraid of failing - a safe environment - is essential to a healthy culture.
A safe space fosters trust between people by removing the need for anyone to engage in blame games. It shifts the focus of the review of the failure from who to why, bringing the team together under a common goal of fixing the actual problem to do better next time.
Reframing failure as a learning opportunity is a great way to acknowledge something that didn't go well and salvage something positive from the situation. Resorting to blame and punitive action is more likely to compound an already less than ideal situation by putting people on the defensive and less willing to collaborate on a solution.
A safe space is also important for promoting open communication and sharing of ideas. People are more likely to share their thoughts and ideas in an environment free of judgement or ridicule. They are also more likely to ask questions or seek clarification if they lack understanding of a subject.
Ultimately though, everyone should feel safe in the environment they work in. We spend so much of our lives in a work environment, it is a tragedy if that time is spent in fear and apprehension.
Growth Mindset
Many years ago I saw a brilliant video by RSA of a talk given by Daniel Pink about what motivates people. Citing research by respected institutions, Daniel speaks of mastery as one key motivator. He uses contribution to open source software projects as an example of the pursuit of mastery. Coming from a software engineering background myself, this resonated with me. I spend much of my own free time working on my own software projects, mostly to learn something.
The desire to learn and grow is highly valued, particularly by people involved in work that requires high degrees of cognition. The more we learn, the closer we are to mastering our craft. Providing opportunities for people to learn speaks directly to that desire. It helps keep them engaged and demonstrates a commitment to supporting their career progression.
It's an investment in the capability of the organisation. Proactively encouraging a growth mindset is a great way of building or maturing capability, and fostering innovation. It's an opportunity to promote the learning of entirely new skills, expanding the individual's skill set while simultaneously introducing new capabilities to the team or organisation.
The indirect effects of having a strong growth mindset within an organisation cannot be overstated. It helps to propel the organisation, making it a pioneer or leader as the benefits of the learning are realised. It makes the organisation a desirable place to work because people view it as a place they can expand their skill set and gain experience on the cutting edge of the field.
An interesting side effect I have seen occasionally is the rise of competition between teams and team members. This usually happens when formal qualifications or certifications are involved and if the achievement of these is publically broadcast to celebrate the success. This is something that must be monitored and managed carefully. There is a healthy level of competition that will see people pushing themselves while pulling others along with them in a supportive manner. But it can also contribute to some toxic behaviour if pride and egos take hold giving rise to elitism and prejudice. It can also hurt people that are not able to achieve the same level of success as the top learners for whatever reason. These issues can be avoided by managing the messaging and celebrating every win with the same level of enthusiasm.
Conversely, hindering efforts to grow will see a stagnation in the organisation's progress and an outflow of staff with arguably the highest potential.
The more people learn, the more they can contribute.
Leader's Influence
I want to reiterate, the traits above can all be influenced directly by the actions and behaviours of leaders. It's leaders that empower people, leaders that choose between understanding or contempt, leaders that provide growth opportunities.
Learn More
If you're interested in learning more about organisational culture I highly recommend this article in Harvard Business Review. You can also check out the work of Edgar Schein who has been researching and writing about organisational development since the 70s and is considered the preeminent expert in the field, or Elliot Jaques who is considered the originator of the concept of corporate culture.