Blog Post

I read a lot about culture, including exploring what people in “Chief Culture Officer” roles write on social media and posts from other organizations in the business of promoting culture.  One thing that stands out to me is the focus on culture as a means to keep employees “happy” and “engaged”.  While this is valuable in itself, it often means the culture lead, or the role of culture is to champion “fun”, with a focus on creating a social and genial environment between colleagues as opposed to an explicit enabler for expected business outcomes.

To be clear, I don’t want to minimize the benefit of these actions and the positive impact they have on the work environment, but I do want to focus on the potential disservice this does to the role of culture within your organization.

Culture is more than creating a “fun place to work” (I know that sounds a bit condescending, but hopefully the exaggeration helps me make my point!).  Culture is how your organization gets things done, all the things your organization does and the decisions it takes are driven by the underlying influence of your culture.  Equally, those decisions and actions have an impact on your culture.  Without an understanding of this dynamic, you are ignoring a key lever to help manage your organization, why would anyone want to do that?

Your culture is expressed in your policies, in the personal work habits of your employees and in the expectations of your customers.  It may seem daunting to wrap your arms around something so expansive and easier to address culture as a measure of employee “happiness”, but this really leaves an enormous opportunity on the sideline.  Worse, your culture may be working against your business objectives and actively making your job harder.  This is why culture is an imperative to business success and much, much more than an employee engagement project.  Learn now to master your culture and connect it to and support your business objectives and you will create an unbeatable competitive advantage.