Recognise This! – Are you willing to ask hard questions to find out from your employees what kind of culture you have today?
A blog I recently discovered (and quickly added to my list of favourites) is Workplace Mojo, written by Matt Monge.
This recent article on culture is just one example of why this blog has risen to the top of my “must read list.” I caught myself cheering at a few statements in the post, namely these:
“Culture should evoke passion and strong opinions–it’s what you stand for, after all.”
“Your culture is your identity, your DNA, it’s who you are and how you are in the marketplace, community, and even world. Culture isn’t, and cannot be, the flavor of the month.”
“Discussion about culture should be passionate and engaging. If it’s not, you can be assured one or more parties is either completely disinterested or completely disengaged. And neither of those is good. So speak up, and encourage your team to do the same. Culture is as important and meaningful as you make it–together.”
Has your organisation encouraged passionate, honest conversations about your culture? If you do, be prepared to hear what you may not want to. But if you’re brave, and your employees are, too, I encourage you to start an open, honest discussion. Prepare yourself to listen, especially to words you may not want to hear.
The good news is it’s possible to proactively create and manage a culture of recognition and appreciation. First, you must determine what you want to build your culture on. We strongly encourage companies to build it on their core values and strategic objectives – what is important to them as an organisation. After all, senior management has likely devoted many hours determining that these things are critical to organisation success.
Once you’ve done this, encourage all employees to recognise each other for living those values and contributing to those objectives. Tell employees you want them to notice and appreciate others in the workplace who are making it possible for the organisation to succeed. Make it possible for them to do this easily, but in a very specific and detailed way.
Now you’re able to capture the “Big Data” on your culture and begin to manipulate it. By that, I mean you are able to see where employees are not living certain values and intervene to find out why, offer more training or more opportunities to do so.
Your culture is a living, breathing thing. It can be changed and flexed to meet your needs IF you’re willing to put your culture proactively in the hands of all employees.
