The Link between Culture and Values
Culture and Values create Behaviors
Here’s a pop quiz for you. How are your organizational culture and values similar? Here are a few things we would commonly see:
We like to use both for fancy plaques on the wall
Both are often buried in your employee handbook
Your team probably can’t tell you what either of them are
Both are actually not what your company says they are
Both are probably not working for you
Judging from this list, you would probably say I am highly skeptical of the usefulness of culture and values in your workplace. In reality that could not be farther from the truth.
In fact, I believe that when utilized properly, these concepts can be the ultimate competitive advantage. In other words, a values-driven company, is a high-performing one. The problem for most leaders is that culture and values are mainly aspirational, and not practical. We will return to that idea later. For now, let me give you an illustration.
A mentor of mine liked to say that your system is perfectly designed to achieve the results you get. So right now, I want you to picture an assembly line at a car factory. Let’s imagine that every 3rd car coming off the line is missing its right fender. On first instinct, we may say that something is wrong with that assembly line. However I would like to suggest that if the line is producing a consistent result, there is actually nothing wrong with it. It is simply not calibrated to meet our expectations.
This is often how culture and values function in an organization. If you watch carefully, you will see that everyday in your workplace, there are patterns of behavior present. Take conflict for example. Your organization may have something written in their vision and values statement about fairness, empathy, or respect, but how do people actually treat each other on a day-to-day basis? Perhaps it looks something like the habits I covered in my most recent article on conflict escalation. These behaviors are a result of your culture and values. Not the ones in your employee handbook, the ones your people actually engage in. Furthermore, these behaviors have consequences for better or worse. Often it’s the latter.
Yet many leaders seem to be surprised when they experience these consistent outcomes because they expect something different. Thus, they often end up treating the symptoms of a problem, and not the root cause. The problem is in our systems, and they are perfectly designed to achieve the results we are getting. If you are experiencing consistent results anywhere in your life, for better or worse, they are not by mistake.
Being Intentional with Culture and Values
So at this point, it would be helpful for us to define culture. We could think of organizational culture as:
“The shared values, belief systems, attitudes, and the set of assumptions that people in a workplace share.”
If we look at it this way, you can see my point earlier when I said that the real culture in your workplace is not in your employee handbook or mounted on the wall. Yet culture is always present, and it is either working for us, or not.
When leaders know how to cultivate and harness culture the right away, it can be incredibly powerful. The workplace analytics company Gallup conducted a recent study that looked at the benefits of strong workplace cultures:
One of the research methods asked employees how connected they felt to their organization’s culture. Those who felt a strong connection were:
4x as likely to be engaged at work
5.8x as likely to strongly agree they would recommend their organization as a great place to work
62% less likely to feel burned out at work very often or always
43% less likely to be watching for job opportunities or actively looking for another job
Clearly strong cultures can give an organization an amazing competitive advantage. The question is, how do we cultivate such an environment in our workplaces?
All of your people are already bringing their own set of beliefs, assumptions, values and insecurities to the table when they enter your doors. This makes guiding your team towards a single unifying vision quite difficult. That’s where your values come into play.
Circling back to an idea I mentioned earlier, for many organizations their culture and values are predominantly aspirational, and have no real practical application to them. Other than the President trumpeting them at your AGM, you would probably never hear them mentioned during everyday work life. However, values are meant to act as guard rails for your culture. This way they can actually help orient company decisions, and create an etiquette for how your people treat each other.
Clear values combined with strong leadership is how you transform your culture, or cultivate a new one!
Values in Action: A 5-Step Process
So let’s walk through a simple process for using values to drive real world behaviors in your business. This is using a framework I created called the Value Wheel. I often use this model during workshops and coaching with my clients, and I will give you a brief summary today. You can see how the process works below:
The Value Wheel
A simple process for creating healthy habits and behaviors in your workplace using your organizational values.
Story – Start with an allegory or personal anecdote that illustrates the behavior you want to implement.
Principle – Clearly articulate the value or concept being described in the story.
Why? – The “so what?” of your message. Highlight a problem that this value solves and create a sense of urgency.
Stickiness – Make the value memorable by capturing it in a sticky statement.
Celebrate – Be intentional with highlighting moments your team has followed the value and reinforce the behavior.
I go into far more depth with this concept when I’m working with clients, but this gives you an outline for how you can use a standard to drive actual behaviors on your team. It’s important to note that behavior change takes time, so I encourage leaders to simply focus on promoting 1 value at any given time. When you see your team starting to take hold of the idea and forming new habits, you can consider introducing a new one.
Over time this is how you begin to change cultural behaviors and the expectations behind them.
A Culture that Delivers the Goods!
How could your organization look different if you started becoming intentional in guiding the habits and expectations of your people? Often, we hear people lament over the state of their workplace, and when asked about the problem, the response is usually something like, “I don’t know… the culture just isn’t good.” Let’s not continue to stare at a car assembly line which isn’t delivering the final product we want. Instead let’s recalibrate the system.
If you want to learn more about some tell-tale signs of bad work culture, check out this great podcast from workplace psychologist Adam Grant on The 4 Deadly Sins of Work Culture.
Furthermore, if you are ready to start transforming your workplace and would like some help, I would be love to have a conversation about the various services I offer and how they can help you achieve new levels of success.
Feel free to go ahead and book a free discovery call with me to start the process!
