3 C’s for Healthy Culture
When I was in university, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go on a student exchange to Japan for 1 year. It was one of my lifelong dreams at the time to live in another country, and I found Asia particularly interesting. There was just something about that side of the world that intrigued me. What was it exactly? Well, I could best some it up in one word… culture.
A culture that was so distinct, so different than my own, and so well preserved from outside influence.
Culture, culture, culture.
There’s that word again. We throw it around often in the workplace and leadership forums. In fact, nowadays I’m not sure if anyone can scroll through Linkedin for more than 30 seconds without coming across that word somewhere. Culture. Organizations and leaders strive for it, yet when asked to define it, we struggle. While we may not know exactly what it means, ask any employee and they will certainly know when it is not working well. There is something instinctively evident about this intangible thing known as workplace culture.
So organizations spend many hours and dollars on training programs and the newest HR or project management software, hoping it will cultivate the values they seek. However, often this becomes an exercise in futility. So leaders simply schedule the annual team building workshop because they feel that’s what they are supposed to do.
What we need to understand about culture is that it is more like scientists observing bacteria in a petri dish, than architects watching their drawings come to life.
Culture has a life of its own. It is not something we create, but something we guide. Whether you know it or not, your workplace has a culture. The question is whether it is working for you or not (if you are curious, just ask your team some honest questions and they will tell you). See like the bacteria in that dish, your culture will grow off what you feed it. Furthermore, it will grow in the direction of least resistance if a leader is not intentional with guiding it. For example, historically it’s been believed that culture drifts every 30 days in organizations. In other words, if you are not re-enforcing company vision and values every month, chances are your team has forgotten it. This is a constant process that requires time and careful attention. It’s not easy, but no one ever said leadership was.
That being said, there are definitely some principles that can help guide your culture’s growth in direction you want. Furthermore, these principles can help you not just grow, but maintain a healthy workplace culture. I’m sure you could imagine the benefits of such a culture, but let me list a few. Healthy organizations are more likely to:
Attract and retain people with high talent and character
Spend less time on unproductive conflict
Make better and faster decisions
Be more fun to work on
Come up with creative and innovative ideas
Have better engagement and commitment from their team
And the list goes on and on. In addition to this, because culture takes on a life of its own, a healthy culture that is well maintained will tend to self-regulate and promote. In other words an eco-system which feeds into itself where people grow from the culture, and then feed back into it. This does not render the work of leaders in this area as unnecessary. Leaders must continue to constantly be assessing, supporting and guiding the growth of their organizational culture.
With that being said, here are 3 crucial principles that I have seen many successful leaders and organizations use to build and maintain and exceptional workplace culture. I call this the 3 Cs of Healthy Workplace Culture:
1. Communicate
This one is like the lifeblood of your organization. The channel by which resources flow to their proper centers so they can be used effectively. If communication is not working well, then you will constantly experience bottlenecks, and under-developed systems, leading to a highly reactive workplace. Moreover, it will undermine the trust and commitment of your team.
Leaders can champion this process by communicating early and often. Overcommunicate and give more detail than you think is necessary. Don’t make assumptions about what people should and shouldn’t know. In addition to this, create a system for your workplace communication with clearly articulated ground rules. This looks like choosing what channels you will use to communicate (example: email, text, slack, memo board etc). Decide on your channels and what context each will be used for then clearly articulate this to your team.
Now a final note needs to be said for this. There is a fine line between effective communication and micro-managing. The difference is the intent and tone with which the message is delivered. Effective communication will empower your team with the information, resources and support they need. Micro-managing seeks to control behavior. Ultimately, we need to treat our team like responsible adults and give them autonomy to do their job, and also experience consequences. If a leader claims they can’t trust their team to do this, the issue is probably more to do with a fear of conflict causing that leader to not establish proper boundaries and confront bad behavior. Which leads us to our next point.
2. Confront
If communication is the lifeblood of culture, then confrontation is definitely the white blood cells. In order to be effective, a leader must become comfortable with having difficult and uncomfortable conversations. This looks like confronting any kind of behavior which hinders or is contrary to the organizational vision, mission and values. However, most leaders struggle with this due to a fear of conflict. I should mention that even someone with a “strong and assertive” personality can be masking a fear of conflict by using force to resolve the issue (and their discomfort with it) quickly.
One area the fear of conflict is most evidenced in, is annual performance reviews. The question is why we wait a whole year to address problems that we should have been dealing with in the moment? Not only is this overwhelming and de-motivating for the employee, but it allows problems to linger and fester for months, harming our culture. This is why it is so important for leaders to prioritize difficult conversations and deal with them quickly.
Leaders need to confront their own fear of confronting, and model productive conflict from the top down. This is the kind of conflict which focuses on ideas and principles rather than interpersonal issues. In other words, we can have passionate and respectful debate over an issue in light of what’s best for the team/company, and not take it personally.
The good news though, is that the more a leader is willing to demonstrate they will do this, the less often they will have to. An added bonus is that if this is down the right way, then team members will be more willing to hold each other accountable.
3. Celebrate
This might seem like a strange one, but let me explain. If we are going to be intentional with addressing problems as leaders, then we need to do the same with wins and accomplishments, no matter how big or small they are. Now some of you may not see celebration as very relevant in the workplace, but the fact of the matter is that we are always celebrating something at work. However most of us are doing it indirectly and don’t even know.
A question for you? What kinds of behavior at work will trigger a good response from you or your leader? Those are the things you celebrate and everyday you are sending that subtle and even sub-conscious message to your team. That if they do X behavior, they will get Y response from you. For most organizations this takes on a very transactional approach of hitting your sales targets, KPIs etc. Don’t get me wrong these are important, but if they are the only thing we celebrate, is it any wonder why there is toxic conflict, competition, disengagement, siloed departments and poor communication in the workplace? We train our team to act in accordance with what we celebrate.
That is why it is so important that we highlight and give attention to the values we want included in our culture. Things like collaboration, humility, integrity, trust, whatever you want to see in your workplace. Not only will this promote healthy behaviors, but it will help our team feel appreciated and create a sense of momentum and progress in your organization. This will motivate your team by helping them feel that they are a part of something bigger than themselves.
So there are some strategies for helping you decode the complex puzzle of company culture. It’s not easy for leaders to champion this kind of vision, but it helps if you break it down into smaller chunks. You can’t directly control how culture will grow because it is a combination of the unique talents, ideas and experiences and that everyone in your organization brings to the table. However, you can guide it by focusing on promoting behaviors for each of these 3 Cs. That is why I suggest picking 1 simple and actionable step you can implement for each one and stay consistent. Give time to assess how these are working for your organization, then adjust if needed. Furthermore, find other people on your leadership team who can help champion these behaviors with you.
If you are looking for support along this leadership journey, I would love to have a conversation about how I can help you and your organization improve your leadership, teamwork, communication and conflict resolution skills through workshops and 1-on-1 coaching.
You can DM me or email: ryan@unearth-coaching.ca to learn more.
Ryan Smith
Founder & Coach
Unearth Coaching Inc.
