By When someone says, “we have a great company culture”, or “we need to improve our company culture” – what are they really saying?
What makes up a company culture, and what makes it desirable or not?
At Awesome Journey our definition of a “Healthy Culture” is:
“A Network of intentionally designed conversations that are built from the organization’s core values and mission/purpose statement to drive a set of specific behaviors to create the right outcomes like quality products, service, people, and teams.”
Your organizational culture lives in your conversations and language, and the outcomes you are able to achieve together.
A sign of a healthy and happy culture is a lack of negative background conversations.
Background conversations are water cooler talk and side conversations where true feelings are often revealed, frustrations are aired, and disengagement brews.
If there are background conversations occurring, they will dominate all internal conversations in your organization, and they will strain and hinder trust, engagement, communication, and performance in negative ways.
Organizations that have “Healthy Cultures” are able to leverage their culture to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.
Bridgewater AssociatesThe whole organization is committed and aligned to living by a set of principles to become great. This alignment creates a shared culture that is understood and practiced daily. Some of their guiding principles:
Book about their healthy culture is entitled, “Principles”, by Ray Dalio (CEO) |
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Google’s belief that “High Performance Teams Need Psychological Safety” is the guiding force behind their culture, their commitment, and their secret to building great teams. Some of their guiding principles:
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DisneyFrom personal experience, the Disney culture is real and deep – it makes you truly believe you are in the happiest place on earth! Some of their guiding principles:
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Barry-WehmillerSome of their guiding principles:
Book about their healthy culture is entitled, “Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family”, by Robert Chapman (CEO) |
PixarSome of their guiding principles:
Book about their healthy culture is entitled, “Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation”, by Linda Hill |
A Healthy Culture creates a differentiating factor that is almost impossible to compete against. A company can compete on price, service and products, but they cannot simply copy your culture (network of conversations), which makes culture incredibly powerful.
Challenge:
In your next Executive Meeting initiate a dialogue about all the different conversations that are impacting your organization (two examples – meetings and onboarding new staff).
Are the conversations in these meetings built on your company’s core values and mission/purpose statement?
