7 Ways to Ignite Your Culture
If you “google” the word culture a definition you might find is “the personality of your organization and is the sum of your values, beliefs, traditions, attitudes, and behaviours.” I once had it best described by a participant thought as simply – “it’s the way things are around here.” – and I’ve never forgotten this.
Here’s the problem. In my experience, we assume we have a strong culture because people are happy, get along well, and work hard. Consider yourself lucky that the individuals that work for you have high standards and personal values. At best, I’m willing to concede that you hire well and know the type of people that will succeed in your environment, but don’t get complacent – you didn’t create anything, and it’s certainly not a culture by design.
How Do We Ignite Our Culture?
Our current culture, like many companies, have simply evolved over time and often are not aligned with what we desire. This happens because we don’t take the time to define our desired state and we haven’t built the rigor around bringing that desired culture to life. There are many different factors that make up a culture, here are 8 that will help you Ignite Your Culture:
1. Mission & Vision: Daniel Pink writes, in his book, “Drive”, that people are motivated by Purpose. Having a strong mission and vision is really defining the company’s purpose and with that purpose mode in place, it will be the driving force for any decisions that employees make.
2. Values: With a strong mission and vision in place, the values are then the behaviours and guidelines that drive the bus. For example, at Fairwinds Training we have a few core values that we operate by each and every day:
- Family First – in part this is why we all chose to work at Fairwinds. It provides us with the flexibility to effectively manage our personal and professional lives
- Fun – while we take what we do very seriously, we don’t take ourselves too serious and we want to have fun doing the work we do.
- Be Curious, Not Judgmental – you got us, we do love the show Ted Lasso and this one has impacted us all. In everything we do, we always try to approach it with curiosity.
- Be Kind – we firmly believe that every deserves to be treated like an individual and we try to give everyone an experience that allows them to bring their best self each and every day.
3. Practices: The values above may just seem like words, but I assure you we live by these values each and every day and we hold each other accountable to them. Here’s where practices come into play. There needs to be congruency between who we say we are and what we actually do. So, if we say that we’ll treat each other with mutual respect, then we ought to have policies and procedures in place that ensure we treat each other with mutual respect.
4. Leadership: I was talking with a colleague this morning about implementing some new processes into a business. We talked about the need for Leadership to lead by example. Leadership has the capability to make or break a culture, be sure they support your mission, vision, values and practices.
5. Communication Strategy: I remember talking to a client a while ago about the results of an engagement survey. The results were poor, and I encouraged them to transparently communicate them to the employees, after all they took the time to provide the feedback. The client refused to communicate the results and you can guess where the results went the following year. Decide the frequency, transparency, and degree to which you’ll communicate to employees and deliver on that promise. Oh, and I encourage you not to decide that no communication is your strategy.
6. What’s Your Story: We all have unique stories about our companies that help others see who we are and what we stand for. At Fairwinds we’ve always had a passion for helping others be their best and to treat each other with trust. We know that doesn’t work for everyone, and we’re ok with that. We know that when you choose to work with us it’s because we know you see things similar to the way we do.
7. People: No culture can exist without the people who support it. That’s why your recruitment policies become critical to the success of your culture. Be relentless in your pursuit for the type of people that support your culture and settle for nothing less. This doesn’t mean everyone has to be the same, it means that people share the same values as you and, support your vision and mission.
What’s in it for You?
1. Attraction – Candidates today will be looking for indicators of what your culture is. They’ll talk to people that work for you, they’ll look to your website, and they’ll look to other websites like Glassdoor.com to find out. A strong culture creates your value proposition and with that you’ll attract employees who fit.
2. Engagement & Retention – We know engagement is winning the hearts and minds of employees. Often we lose the hearts and minds of employees when our value proposition doesn’t live up to reality. If we’re consistently living our culture, employees will strengthen the engagement within our firms.
3. Performance – It should be no surprise that if we’ve hired the right people, and we follow through on our value proposition, the result will be employees who perform at a high-level.
4. Customer Satisfaction – When your culture all comes together you can be assured that customers will take notice and want to be a part of the success.
Like many things in business, igniting and maintaining a culture is an iterative, never-ending process. Your process will evolve over time as your business does. It’s important to note that as the evolution takes place you’re constantly looking at how your culture will support your new vision and mission. With that in mind, you can’t help but be successful.
Fairwinds Training and Development offers a variety of culture and change services including diagnostics, assessments, training and development, strategy consultation, and employee engagement surveys. For more information on any of our services please contact us at www.fairwindstraining.com .