Strengthening a culture is not a one-off project; it is truly never-ending.
An organization’s culture is arguably its greatest asset. Culture attracts and
retains top talent, rallies employees to find innovative solutions to problems,
protects the company from outside threats, and is the key driver for pushing the
organization forward. So, it is no surprise that instilling, nurturing and
continually strengthening a healthy and thriving
culture
sits at the top of the list for organizational leaders.
At thinkPARALLAX, we work with our
clients to strengthen their culture
through extensive employee engagement, training and professional development.
The engagement tactics and communication strategies that we offer are derived
from a core philosophy dissecting what a strong culture looks like, and how to
go about strengthening it. We break down that philosophy here:
A thriving culture is built on a strong foundation
Metaphorically speaking, an organization is like a car, with leadership acting
as the steering wheel, the marketing department as the body and paint job.
Culture, therefore, is the car’s engine — it power the car forward. While
combustion
engines
vary slightly from car to car, each one requires the same foundational elements
of fuel, air, pressure and electricity to harmoniously work together to power
the vehicle. Similarly, while thriving cultures undoubtedly vary across
organizations, they all carry three foundational components that propel them.
Powerful and effective cultures are those that are values-led, aligned
and trusting.
1. Values-Led: Values are what guide all of us; they are also directly
responsible for our beliefs. Our belief system then influences our attitudes.
Our attitudes, in turn, affect our behaviors. A culture that shares similar
values will perform and collaborate better than one that doesn’t. If the
fundamental values between individuals and their
company
as a whole differ, their subsequent behaviors will often contradict one another.
At the nucleus of any high-performing group – be it a sports team, a
neighborhood or even a country – is an agreed-upon set of shared values that
each member holds, guiding his or her actions.
2. Aligned: An aligned culture is one that is pointed towards the company’s
North Star. Not only does everyone share the aforementioned values, but they
also understand and align with the company’s purpose and mission. They are
aware of how the company is impacting the world and appreciate how they, as an
employee, play a role in achieving the company’s vision. This alignment instills
a deep and powerful force to push the company forward, promoting
intrapreneurship and organically producing employee brand
ambassadors.
This also gives members a sense of belonging – something humans innately crave.
3. Trusting: A culture built around trust ignites cooperation, teamwork and
productivity. If people are worried about losing their jobs next quarter,
getting penalized for making a mistake or other fear-based worries, they will
spend less time helping peers or the company and instead focus more on
protecting themselves. As Simon Sinek points out in his book, Leaders Eat
Last: “When we have to protect ourselves from each other, the whole
organization suffers. But when trust and cooperation thrive internally, we pull
together and the organization grows stronger as a result.”
Before modifying a car’s engine to make it faster and stronger, you need to
ensure that bolts and wires are in place to connect the new pieces. Therefore,
before an organization can look to strengthen or engage its culture, the above
key fundamental traits need to be ingrained.
Strengthening a culture: The Four-Step Cycle
Before exploring our four-step cycle, it is important to call out that cultures
should be strengthened, not changed. More than having a more constructive
connotation, the act of strengthening a culture entails undergoing continuous,
calculated and measured improvements, as opposed to drastic changes. Our
four-step cycle for strengthening a culture includes investigating the current
status of the culture, identifying an area of improvement or desired
implementation, engaging employees (which carries the most weight and is where
the meat of this lies), and lastly, evaluating the outcomes and results. With
the foundation at the core, this cycle helps our clients to effectively
communicate and engage with their employees in an effort to foster a thriving
culture.
1. Investigate: This is the research and discovery stage, aimed at getting
the heartbeat of the culture. Gather as many insights as possible to gauge the
current state. Ensure whatever devices and tactics used during this stage are
within means and repeatable. Investigate the overall sentiment of the culture at
all levels of the organization via focus groups, surveys, open-door policies,
interviews, management retreats, etc.
2. Identify: Equipped with the research and insights from the previous
stage, now it is time to diagnose the culture and define goals. What positive
aspects of the culture shone through in the research? What areas can be
improved? Are certain desired attributes not as prominent as others? Create a
few SMART goals for the top areas where you want to strengthen the culture.
3. Engage: As explained earlier, the roots supporting a strong culture are
the agreed and acted upon shared values. And remembering that values drive
behavior, the opportunities for strengthening and engaging a culture can be
addressed through three general avenues: Value promotion, value
permeation and value performance:
– Value promotion: Do employees know the company’s values? Do they
understand them? Are they aware of how the values are guiding the company toward
its vision, and how they are being acted on? Promote the company’s values in
everything — from putting them on the walls in offices and manufacturing plants
to employees’ checks and performance reviews. Similarly, when communicating
changes to the business, its strategy or desired outcomes, clearly show how the
initiatives relate back to the core set of values.
– Values permeation: How ingrained are the values? The organization’s values
need to be embedded within everything, with the aim to have employees gain a
deeper understanding of them. This can take numerous engagement form from
leadership development, to onboarding, to general education. Caterpillar
creates a robust
report highlighting
their ‘Values in Action,’ Salesforce has new hires volunteer on day
one,
the NFL sponsors its athletes’ chosen charities highlighted on their
shoes, WeWork doesn’t allow its
employees to expense meals with
meat, SurveyMonkey
has an internal recognition
program –
whatever the tactic or initiative employed for permeating the organization’s
values into the culture, ensure that it is authentic and clearly understood by
all members.
Additionally, permeation is not preaching. For example, if a value of an
organization is related to the environment, telling members to recycle more or
to eat less
meat
is not diffusing the value, rather an attempt to change behavior. Instead, a
more effective approach would be educating and informing them about why it’s
important to value the
environment
and how it affects them by personalizing it. Thus, the simple act of recycling
becomes one of the many possible outcomes caused by a value-driven behavior.
– Value performance: Are the values being lived? The goal is for the
organization, leadership and all members to continuously demonstrate and act on
the shared values guiding how they behave toward one another, their work, their
clients and their community/environment. To foster and encourage this, highlight
and celebrate those individuals, groups and departments within the organization
that are living the values and who are demonstrating the related behavior.
4. Evaluate: Now, it’s time to measure. What went well? What didn’t? This
stage is measuring both the results and the effectiveness of the engagement
tactics. What worked? Which didn’t? As you continue through multiple
progressions, you will begin to refine engagement practices, honing in on ones
that are most effective for your specific business and operations.
While it is not an official step of the cycle, the last step is: Repeat.
Strengthening a culture is not a one-off project, it is truly never-ending. As
the company grows, so does the culture. This is why we call it a cycle — there
is no endpoint, only further progress.
This post first appeared on the thinkPARALLAX blog on January 14, 2019.
Published Feb 12, 2019 7am EST / 4am PST / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET
Nathan Sanfaçon is a strategist at thinkPARALLAX, a branding and communications agency focused on articulating and amplifying their clients’ environmental and social impact, and lead author of whitepaper: The Formula for Communicating ESG.
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