Building a Strong, Engaging and Resilient Culture to Win in 2021

I’ve shared before how, in the ear­ly days of my career, I thought cul­ture was warm, fuzzy HR fluff — more enter­tain­ment and social club than a strate­gic dri­ver. Prob­a­bly because I was so obsessed with achieve­ment and not over­ly con­cerned about envi­ron­ment. That per­spec­tive has def­i­nite­ly changed over the years.

Build­ing a strong cul­ture can align your team, espe­cial­ly when that cul­ture is crys­tal clear and rein­forced on a reg­u­lar basis. With­out clear guide­lines for how to behave in your com­pa­ny, your cul­ture will become the aver­age of what your more influ­en­tial peo­ple think or believe. And, as your com­pa­ny grows, you’ll hire peo­ple who are off cul­ture, espe­cial­ly senior leaders.

Here are four things to do in 2021 to ensure your cul­ture gets bet­ter and stronger:

[1] Avoid wall­pa­per syndrome

This is when your cul­ture dis­ap­pears with neglect. Even com­pa­nies with well-defined core val­ues and pur­pose need to breathe life into the cul­ture — again and again and again.

Research about endur­ing, great com­pa­nies — and our own expe­ri­ence with com­pa­nies around the world — shows it’s not so much what the cul­ture is — it’s about hav­ing a com­mon cul­ture. Sim­i­lar to an oper­at­ing sys­tem, it allows peo­ple to row in the same direc­tion, with less fric­tion, and makes it eas­i­er to enjoy their work.

Fig­ure out four, six, eight, ten or twelve things you can do to con­tin­u­al­ly breathe life into your cul­ture in 2021 – here are some ideas:

• An annu­al kick-off event talk­ing about pur­pose and core values.
• Core val­ue awards.
• Ask every­one in the vir­tu­al room to note one core val­ue they con­sis­tent­ly live the best – and one they need to work on.
• Cre­ate a phys­i­cal piece that rein­forces core val­ues: a coin, a t‑shirt, a card.
• Hold a con­test for the best video that artic­u­lates your core val­ues, for oth­ers in the com­pa­ny and new hires.
• Make a list of what the core val­ues aren’t.
• Ask for and share cus­tomer feed­back about how they expe­ri­ence your core values.
• Mine sto­ries from the company’s his­to­ry about when peo­ple did or did not live the core values.
• Review your pur­pose and core val­ues in the first min­utes of every meet­ing and in every CEO address.
• Ask all man­agers to write notes of appre­ci­a­tion acknowl­edg­ing their staff for core val­ues lived well that year.

And I’m sure your awe­some team can up with 347 oth­er ideas

[2] Remove the plaque

Think about the anal­o­gy of good oral hygiene: we brush our teeth and floss, on a reg­u­lar basis, to keep teeth and gums healthy. But you still have to go to the den­tist every six months for a check-up and to scale off addi­tion­al plaque that builds up — no mat­ter how often you’ve brushed.

Con­sis­tent behav­iours become cul­ture, and process­es, strate­gies, beliefs and peo­ple get in that need to be checked and removed. Like hav­ing too many meet­ings or always start­ing or fin­ish­ing late. You have to pay atten­tion and con­sis­tent­ly clean up what doesn’t work, in all lev­els of the com­pa­ny — from senior lead­er­ship to the front line.

Every­one needs to be giv­en con­sis­tent, pow­er­ful reminders and oppor­tu­ni­ties to reflect on what are unac­cept­able and accept­able behaviours.

The crit­i­cal step is to decide to remove unwant­ed things – activ­i­ties, process­es or behav­iours that need to change, stop or get back to what was ini­tial­ly intended.

Hir­ing or pro­mot­ing some­one who does­n’t get your cul­ture is equiv­a­lent to say­ing your cul­ture does­n’t matter.

[3] Pull the weeds

In an amaz­ing gar­den, weeds still pop up. This can be tox­ic to the aes­thet­ic and a detri­ment to what you are try­ing to grow. Remov­ing those weeds — peo­ple who are not a fit with your cul­ture – can be a tough decision.

Most of our clients use a quar­ter­ly tal­ent review, start­ing with the exec­u­tive team to look at per­for­mance and val­ues of the team and their direct reports.

The process reveals an action item to address those who are not a fit with the culture:

• Tox­ic As (high per­form­ers who aren’t a cul­tur­al fit)
• C‑Players (low per­form­ers who aren’t a cul­tur­al fit)

Ide­al­ly, both can be giv­en a chance to get back on cul­ture and sup­port to help them thrive. If, after a quar­ter or two, they don’t, a deci­sion may be need­ed to give them an oppor­tu­ni­ty to go a com­pa­ny that more suits their nat­ur­al way of think­ing and behaving.

The key is to make sure you always look for what’s best for the com­pa­ny and the cul­ture over­all — and the indi­vid­ual. Peo­ple who don’t fit sim­ply aren’t hap­py and, although change can be hard, it’s bet­ter to have an adult con­ver­sa­tion to encour­age them to look for anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty, and to help them to move on with dignity.

One of the great­est ways to lose cred­i­bil­i­ty as a leader is to hire, keep or pro­mote some­one who isn’t a good cul­ture fit.

[4] Get reg­u­lar 360 feed­back to exec­u­tives and key leaders

Some­times, CEOs or senior lead­ers have blind spots and miss where their behav­iors are off cul­ture. Some peo­ple can work excep­tion­al­ly well with us but are a night­mare for oth­ers. These may not be bad peo­ple — they may just have bad habits.

360 feed­back makes it crys­tal clear who is real­ly on or off cul­ture and why. It also pro­vides the data we need to improve. Our 360s ask 10 short ques­tions relat­ed to liv­ing up to core val­ues and lead­er­ship effec­tive­ness. It’s a great way to make sure that every­one knows where they stand. In addi­tion, it helps cre­ate a plan for what needs to be done to cre­ate a more effec­tive team.

In sum­ma­ry, keep­ing a vibrant cul­ture is no dif­fer­ent to keep­ing your teeth healthy or your gar­den beau­ti­ful. It’s work that requires ongo­ing thought, ener­gy and main­te­nance. Oth­er­wise, dete­ri­o­ra­tion will set in, requir­ing seri­ous­ly expen­sive or painful reha­bil­i­ta­tion. You want to respect and hon­our what you have and con­tin­ue to enhance it.

The Chal­lenge

• Devel­op a list of 6 to 12 things that you’re going to do to enhance your cul­ture next year.
• Decide you you are going to work with to help you with this.

Let us know if we can assist you if…

• Your val­ues and oth­er mech­a­nisms of your cul­ture aren’t crys­tal clear
• Your cul­ture (pur­pose and core val­ues), sys­tem for 360s or quar­ter­ly tal­ent reviews aren’t as good as they can be.

Check out this episode of The Growth Whis­per­ers pod­cast for more on this topic.