Episode #368: How To Join The Culture Champion Workplaces – Part Two

In Part One, we have looked at how to identify the culture in the organisation and if it is a keeper, the numerous obstacles to maintaining that culture. In this instalment we look at what the best in class companies are doing about building an unbeatable culture.

Our proprietary research showed that for all companies the main challenge to both creating and maintaining positive culture was the pressure to produce results. This makes sense, because all of those high-falutin words coming out of the C-Suite, tend to evaporate by the time they loft down to the engine room and the down and dirty world of revenue production tends to take over everyone’s concentration.

Saying you believe something is easy, but losing money to show you believe it, now that takes a lot more courage. In the good times, your CEO airily says cool stuff like, “Our staff are our most valuable resource”, “Our most important assets go down the elevator every evening”. This is very hip. However, when Covid-19 pops up on the radar, senior management immediately furlough many of those loyal, hardworking staff, because they are worried about damaging shareholder value and keeping their own job.

What happened at your company? Were people instantly thrown overboard, to protect owner wealth or did you burn cash to keep the herd intact? When this type of dilemma arises, you find out the true value system of your leaders and the integrity of your culture.

The second highest challenge was workplace transparency. Here the gap between the best performing Culture Champion workplaces and the rest was quite large. The champions registered 44% as a challenge, compared to only 27% for the rest. The top performing Culture Champions recognised this was an issue, that needed to be dealt with. Aspiring to a positive and great culture means being a lot more open with the staff. This is inclusive rather than exclusive thinking in action. Employees feel both trusted and valued, when they are told what is going on. Would you say the leaders in your company are open and transparent?

This doesn't have to be a reactive process. There is an opportunity for the top leadership to be proactive about being transparent. They can be open, honest and willing to communicate both the good and bad news, as they explain their actions. Is this what happens in your organisation? Or is the good news trotted out and celebrated widely, while the bad news is quietly taken out the back and garrotted? Is the leadership walking the talk?

The other push for transparency comes from the front line. Today, employees have a lot of access to information. The CEO gives a presentation at a Town Hall or via video broadcast and this goes out directly to the troops, with no filter. Matrix organisations also provide opportunities to access information from colleagues scattered around the firm and from a variety of managers, beyond your immediate supervisor.

The old days of the Middle Managers monopolising information, to maintain their position power, has been undone to a great extent. At your firm, are the Middle Managers conduits of what is going on, happily sharing the news from the upper echelons or are they like squirrels, busily hoarding the news, to maintain their power over everyone?

The advance of tech has also challenged the transparency of companies and the alignment of what they say with what they actually do. The Marketing Department and the Investor Relations Department, put out a beautiful version on what is happening within the firm. However, online forums will have insider information coming from current or former employees, which cannot be controlled by the company’s propaganda machine. If you want to know what is going on in your company, a quick search on social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook will also be revealing. Strong employee culture expectation are very much about “don’t tell me what you did for me yesterday, tell me about what you are doing for me today”.

In the next instalment, we will look at how to measure culture, what the C-suite and the HR professsionals can do, to build a Champion Culture.