01/05/2023
Company culture can be hard to define. Depending on the organization, you might struggle to put your company culture into words, especially if the day-to-day is misaligned with the company’s values.
In thriving organizations, culture looks like (and often is) the hidden “secret sauce.” On the flip side, in failing organizations, culture is often blamed for preventing change.
But how do you improve company culture when it is challenging to nail down, to begin with? Let’s take a step back and consider what organizational culture is, how to define yours, and then look at ways to enhance it.
Have you heard the quote: “People will not remember what you say but they will remember how you made them feel?” Culture is kind of like that. It impacts every aspect of the employee experience. From the way co-workers speak to one another to the feedback cycle for upper management, to the way teams manage workloads and burnout.
Each of these areas involves crossroads and nuanced decision-making. The company’s culture informs how these various activities (among others) are approached, discussed, and acted on.
THE COMPANY'S CULTURE IS ITS DNA
Given the influence organizational culture has on the way employees conduct themselves, it is incredibly important to invest in it. A clear workplace culture keeps teams aligned and helps strengthen cross-departmental collaboration. Other benefits include:
- Reduced turnover: Employees are happier when they are in healthy work cultures, so they are less likely to leave.
- Improved psychological safety: Positive company cultures build trust between employees and leadership. Everyone feels comfortable being themselves at work and sharing their thoughts, opinions, and ideas.
- Enhanced creativity: Stemming from psychological safety and greater levels of trust, employees tend to take more risks and think outside the box when they feel supported by their company.
- Stronger candidate pools: Companies with thriving cultures tend to attract the best of the best. Top talent is often attracted to a strong employer brand, and positive work culture is one aspect of that.
HOW LEADERS INFLUENCE A COMPANY CULTURE
Few scholarly metaphors have had the lasting impact of the well-known iceberg model within the organizational culture domain. As with icebergs, the most important and enduring elements live below the surface. In this case, they exist inside the minds of the most influential people in the organization, starting with the leaders.
Leaders’ mindsets tell a unique and often personal story about their past success. The consequences of their experiences can be seen in all other layers of the culture, including in the values that are shared (“what we stand for”) and in the norms and practices that are supported (“how we do things around here”).
HOW TO SPOT AN UNHEALTHY COMPANY CULTURE
Poor company culture can be detrimental to teams and overall productivity. If you aren’t sure whether your organization’s culture could use a refresh, here are some signs of unhealthy company culture:
- Low employee engagement: Team members are less likely to be enthusiastic and engaged in their work when their company culture is unhealthy. They might still be productive but are unlikely to develop new creative ideas or share them with much vigor.
- High employee turnover: Companies with an unhealthy work culture often have trouble with retention. If employees are leaving quickly or en masse, you could have a company culture issue.
- Unbalanced work-life ratio: Employees working within an unhealthy corporate culture might feel the need to work tirelessly into the late hours. They could feel pressure to overwork to the point of exhaustion and burnout.
CREATING A SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Now you know the symptoms of unhealthy company culture, but how do you improve it in a sustainable way?
Good organizations can become great when they align their culture, strategy, and employee ecosystem. The bests create an environment that is not only highly engaging but also highly focused on their strategy and aligned with their values.
But, sustaining it in the long run has more to do with what happens as the formula changes. For many organizations, changes in the ecosystem and strategy demand culture change. And in this sense, the change is often quite reactive. The first challenge has to do with seeing the situation for what it is, and the second has to do with making the change on a culturally meaningful (“deep”) level. Often, the signals are buried in an incremental performance decline, and the causes are either unclear or the source of stifling internal debates.
7 WAYS TO IMPROVE COMPANY CULTURE
In a new era of rapid disruption and where change is the only constant, developing procedures to prevent the sauce from turning into inertia and instead take meaningful steps to reinvent for continuous, proactive culture change might just become a business necessity.
How can organizations develop this capability? Here are 7 fundamentals to improving your company culture:
5 SKILLS FOR BUILDING A GREAT COMPANY CULTURE
Great leaders looking to foster positive organizational cultures observe the behavior and attitudes of groups. They then relate these observations to better understand the mindsets of individuals.
One thing that makes the process of culture change uniquely challenging is that you need to work at multiple levels. The sense-making and change happen in a social context and on a personal level. But how do you get at something deeply personal in the normal workplace context?
The answer is found in specialized skills related to observation, reflection, and dialogue. These skills can be developed with practice. Here are five skills with accompanying questions that you can ask to help get (and stay) ahead of the culture curve:
KEEP A PULSE ON YOUR COMPANY CULTURE
Now you have the information you need to kick-start your efforts to improve your company culture. But this is not a set-it-and-forget-it system. It is important to continue measuring and evaluating the impact of these changes over time. So, keep a pulse on your company culture and adjust where you have opportunities to improve even further. You are sure to see an uptick in the beneficial areas of leading an outstanding place to work.