Understanding Culture
Culture is developed organically over time and becomes a part of who we all are. From how we act, to how we dress, to how we perform our jobs every day. It affects how we interact with coworkers, clients, family, and friends. It even affects our health.
The culture of a workplace – an organization’s values, norms, and practices – has a huge impact on our happiness and success. When we’re all aligned with what matters most — when we know and understand our roles within a larger story — culture thrives. On the flip side, if we’re all “just doing our thing” for the sake of doing “the thing,” and there’s no real, clear vision for our impact, culture dives.
Simply put: when culture is good, it’s good. When it’s bad… it’s freaking miserable.
And here’s the thing: there’s no silver bullet for creating a thriving culture. It takes time, intentionality, and making genuine investments in each other to develop a healthy culture in the workplace. Notice I didn’t say anything about fun.
Fun becomes a byproduct of a healthy culture, not a means of creating one.
Fixing A Bullet Wound With A Band-Aid
I once worked at a company (we’ll call it Company X) with a palpable culture problem. No one seemed to ever be on the same page; everyone had their own agendas; and leadership never fully invested in communicating the organizational goals we were supposed to be striving to accomplish. It was a mess, and we had bad attitudes to prove it.
No one laughed or smiled or conversed in the hallways; people began losing focus — not only on each other but on their own responsibilities. Projects got dropped, deadlines missed, and ultimately clients left to find better cultures to throw money at.
Well, the bosses could certainly sense morale was low, so they took action. A company-wide email was sent out at 4:00 PM on a Tuesday that read:
“Tuesday Treat! We have an open tab at (insert local bar name here) until 6:00 PM. You all have been working hard, so let’s all go play hard! P.S. Do your timesheet!”
Of course, this was a welcome surprise. Voices raised a few octaves, smiles crept onto people’s faces, laughter ensued, and we all headed down the street in happy unison to wash our cares away. And you know what happened? Not a dad-gum thing.
The next day was just another Wednesday at work, but worse. We all had hangovers. You see, our leadership was trying to fix a bullet wound with a Band-Aid. They tried to insert fun where they needed to develop a healthy culture.
Ways To Develop A Healthy Culture
Live The Mission
I don’t think there was a single employee at Company X who could effectively communicate the mission, vision, or values of Company X. And I don’t just mean the words on our website. Everyone had forgotten our reason for getting up and going to work every day.
In order to have a positive company culture, employees simply MUST be working toward a common and worthy goal. Period.
Know Your Role
What’s worse than not knowing your goal? Not knowing your role. If people don’t understand that they are playing a crucial role in a much larger, more significant story, they will become disengaged, bored, and apathetic.
Conversely, if I understand the big picture and have been given clearly defined areas of responsibility in that picture; well, that’s a beautiful thing.
Trust
Plain and simple. Thinking back, perhaps the biggest problem at Company X was the complete lack of trust from higher-ups. Not only did we all lose sight of why we were doing what we were doing and how that was making a difference; nobody trusted us to do it anyway! More often than not, lack of clarity created the sense that “If I want it done right, I have to do it myself” leadership.
Listen, there’s nothing wrong with having pride and being confident in yourself as a leader; but lacking trust comes from fear, not leadership. You cannot develop a healthy culture without trust.
Then… Free beer (nobody ever said that was a bad idea).
Want to learn more about how you can protect your organization from becoming like Company X? Wildsparq helps organizations create clarity around culture every day. Sign up for a free demo of the Wildsparq platform, or shoot us an email at info@wildsparq.com.
We’d love to help!