Recognise This! – Every employee, at every level, is responsible for creating the company culture for all.
Expanding on my post yesterday about Zappos’ extraordinary culture and the three pillars underpinning it (values, service and experience), what’s the role of the leader? Tony Hsieh clearly made the call to invest the time and money necessary to create and reinforce a consistent culture in every employee. But is it always the CEO’s responsibility to create the culture?
Last month Kevin Eikenberry wrote on “A Leader’s Role in Culture Creation,” outlining three facts (quoting):
- Culture belongs to all leaders, not just the C-Suite.
- No one does it alone.
- You are impacting the culture with everything you do.
I largely agree, with a few caveats.
1) The C-Suite sets and reinforces the culture. Pockets within a company can go “counter-culture,” but these tend to not last long. Employees learn to work within the prevailing culture – good or bad. The level and quality of work produced, however, is a direct correlation of the prevailing culture.
2) Employees contribute as much to culture as the leaders. The poor attitude of just one team member can drag down the entire team. This is especially true in light of research featured by Bob Sutton, “The main finding is that those who had unsupportive co-workers died at a much higher rate.”
This is food for thought for leadership, certainly, who must consider do they want to go the lazy route and keep jerks on board or ignore their bad behaviour without taking the steps necessary to reform their actions. Do you want jerks on staff who cause strife and distraction or do you want to create a culture and work environment in which committed employees who just want to get the job done can do so in a helpful, supportive and appreciative culture?
The latter culture of recognition is proven to increase employee engagement by double digits in less than a year. Since numerous organisations have proven the bottom-line value of increased engagement, why would management consider for a second keeping the jerks around?
3) Think of culture like a bonsai tree. Culture can never be ignored or assumed to be “complete.” Culture requires constant attention and work – little tweaks here and there to keep the culture and the company growing along the right path.
What’s the culture in your company? Is it treated passively by management as something that “just is,” or is it something your management team – and every employee – work at every day?
