Date Published March 7, 2024 - Last Updated March 7, 2024
A successful organizational culture is built upon a combination of factors that collectively shape the values, behaviors, and practices within a company. Dr. Jessica Kriegel of Culture Partners points out from a Stanford University study she managed that revenue growth in strong culture companies is 4 times that of weak culture companies. She clearly makes the case for having a strong culture and the benefits of this.
Adi Gaskell points out in Management Today that Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends reports regularly tout the benefits of investing in culture, and its 2021 edition cited organizational culture as the single most likely thing to transform the workplace. Other studies have cited culture as underpinning everything from remote working to an organization’s sustainability ambitions. The importance of culture was reinforced by recent research from consulting firm Culture Shift, which suggested that so-called toxic cultures were costing UK businesses billions.
The researchers cited things like a lack of trust and respect, poor work-life balance, and generally not being valued as key markers of a toxic workplace culture.
Positive Culture is Sought-After, and Important
The importance of culture to your organizational and business success is clear. With this in mind, the remainder of this article discusses some of the important qualities of a winning culture which I recommend you focus on to strengthen your team’s culture.
The organization should have a very clear and understandable mission, vision, and set of values that set the path for the decision-making and actions the team will take. Along with this, you as the leader, set the tone for the culture. You must be sure that you are leading by example and “walking the walk”, not just talking about it. What you do will need to embody the values of the organization and you will find yourself tasked with continually working to reinforce and maintain the culture you are looking for. Furthermore, you have a responsibility to ensure employees clearly understand the sense of purpose. This enables them to understand how their work matters and contributes to the overall success of the business.
There needs to be transparency and an environment of open communication. This encourages collaboration and idea sharing, and most importantly, it sets the stage for honest feedback. Along with this, we want to make employees feel empowered and have some level of autonomy. This will lead to their feeling valued and subsequently, the willingness to be engaged in their work.
Invest in Employee Development
Investing in the employee’s learning and development is a must and must be on a continuous basis. Employees must also be accountable and realize that they are responsible for their actions and the outcomes. This results in a culture in which responsibility and ownership are characteristic.
Today, organizations are challenged by turbulent and ever-changing environments. To meet these challenges, they must have adaptability and flexibility along with resilience and perseverance. Encourage these attributes within your culture to meet the upcoming challenges and to adapt readily to needed changes. In addition to these steps, I appreciated the formula Dr. Kriegel set out for creating a culture that drives results and those include, aligning around results, actions, and beliefs necessary to win. You also need to accelerate with positive accountability, activatereal experiences, and assess to optimize.
Further Context
In summary, remember that each organization is unique and the elements that you need to go after may vary. However, cultivating, changing, and maintaining a strong organizational culture requires ongoing effort, reinforcement, and adaptation. Build on your team’s existing attributes and look for ways to strengthen these, add to them, and gain momentum and commitment from your employees.
The change and growth you look forward to will be complex and take time. You will need assessment on a continuing basis and a willingness to change direction at times. This effort requires a long-term map that succeeds with commitment from you, your leadership, and your employees.