Building Great Cultures

Introduction

Building a great culture in an organisation is not terribly different to building anything else. For instance, building a house, or in the case of an existing structure, that you wish to change, doing renovations.

You wouldn't contemplate building a home, or commencing significant renovations, without a plan. In fact, you’d probably view several architectural designs to decide which one best meets your needs, and then consider other factors such as budget and timing and planning restrictions.

The same fundamental process is valuable when contemplating what sort of culture, you want to build. Culture is often talked about these days in organisational settings, not just corporate but also sports teams and so on, and it's generally accepted that strong cultures underpin success.

Like any building process there are building blocks that are involved which all commence at the design phase. And this is where a very important consideration comes in. If we want the culture of an organisation to be at its strongest and most resilient then we need to ask ourselves a fundamental question. And that is “who am I?” and an extension of that “What are my values?” “What do I stand for?”, “What am I willing to fight for?” and “What am I willing to share publicly?”

This process of introspection takes us back a very long way in time, in fact back to the time of Socrates, considered to be one of our foremost philosophers, who was born in 470 BC. One of Socrates core tenets of his philosophy was “know thyself” in other words to know one's own character. Another is “the unexamined life is not worth living”.

Why would it be important to know who we are before we embark on designing our ideal organisation? Well of course it has to do with what values we would like to instill into the organisation. And when I say we it might be the Chair or CEO but highly unlikely that this design phase is going to fall to one person. We're probably talking about involvement of the board, involvement of the senior executive team and perhaps other managers in the business at a departmental level. And I would argue very importantly at some stage I would involve all team members or all staff.

So that you don't end up with a platypus, which is often referred to as a marsupial designed by a committee, it is probably most appropriate for senior members of an organisation to draft the first design but then to start sharing either the full design or elements of the design with the broader community within the organisation to start to test the relatability of it and support for it  and also to seek feedback and further ideas that could be used to refine it and build by in.

 Our Values Translated into Organisational Values.

In much the same way as a parent is likely to want to instill their values into a child, a manager of people, or an entire organisation, is likely to want the team or company to also share their values.

This isn't possible though unless you know what your values are! Many of these values will revolve around moral and ethical principles and so it's important that you have set your moral compass to your north star, or against the point that you are navigating against, to ensure that you reach your destination.

These principles may sound somewhat esoteric, however, more and more we're seeing across a whole range of stakeholder groups the desire to see business done in a more responsible manner. We see consumers demanding more honesty and transparency with labelling. We see investors researching environmental social and governance issues when deciding where to invest their funds. We see government regulators taking a harder line on organisations that do not have a strong moral compass or high regard for their impact on various stakeholder groups outside of their own shareholders.

Wisdom is often something associated with the past, ‘the wisdom of the ancients’, the ancient philosophers. Likewise, courage. I often think of courage as being associated with physical courage displayed in great battles, which of course can also be in more recent times. However, wisdom and courage, particularly moral courage are as much required today as they have ever been.

It can be of value for a board or an executive team to workshop what values they might hold important. This exercise is likely to also provide insight into the fact that things aren't always black and white, and that different people operate within different frameworks and that this is where wisdom to work in a nuanced environment is one of the most prized qualities of leadership.