How to Center People in Your Organizational Culture

How Would You Describe Your Organization’s Culture?

If pressed, right here and right now, would you be able to describe your organization’s or business’ culture? You might be able to repeat a mission statement, rattle off some core values or share a quote from the CEO — but those alone do not make a culture. Think about the ways you experience your organization every day — in meetings, conversations with coworkers, moments of team building, and times when different departments or groups interact — those are all pieces of your workplace culture as well.

In their book “Out of Office,” Anne-Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel explain company culture this way: “There’s how an organization defines itself publicly, and then there’s how employees experience life with that organization on a daily basis. Somewhere in the space between the two understandings is company culture, which, once in place, can be incredibly difficult to change — save through something as dramatic as, well, a paradigm-shifting pandemic.”

Developing strong organizational cultures is critical to businesses everywhere, especially during these changing times. With an ever-growing distributed workforce and employees expecting more from their employers, having a strong organizational culture will go a long way in keeping businesses connected, engaged, and productive. And as the pandemic continues to lessen in our collective focus, organizations and companies have an opportunity to take what they have learned from the past two years and make adjustments that support the workplace culture their employees have found work best for them.

Culture change isn’t to be feared. As a company evolves, it’s reasonable to have basic underlying assumptions that its culture will too. It can feel risky to take a serious look at the current culture in your company, but we at The Change Agents (TCA) believe it will, in the long run, support your company’s success and support employees at work as well as in their lives outside your organization. Those factors work together, in the end, to impact how much employees are able to succeed in their jobs and on behalf of the organization’s vision and bottom line.

Organizational Culture is All About People

Let’s say that again: organizational culture is about people. How employees experience life in their workplace on a daily basis defines organizational culture more than any mission or values statement.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself about the people inside your organization:

Here’s what’s crucial to understand about your entire organization: It is the people inside an organization and how well they relate and communicate with each other that keeps a company functioning and thriving. The bottom line, people want to know they are cared for and are working toward something worthwhile. Your cultural values should be shaped in such a way that they support these two important things.

The Cultural Effect of People Feeling Valued

When people know they are valued, feel cared for, and are a part of worthwhile work, the effect will be employee motivation, employee engagement, and regular employee improvement. The Change Agents understand organizational culture and how to build strong ones. We help companies discover their true potential by igniting the full potential of their teams to do their best work.

Whatever challenge an organization might be facing, whether it is a business or financial issue, a change in management process, or developing a more inclusive and equitable workplace, understanding the human aspects of the entire staff is critical to achieving and sustaining success. We’ve made it our entire mission to discover the true potential of an organization by igniting change through its people — and that’s because we believe the effect people have on an organization’s ability to bring about change should not be underestimated.

Our view on organizational culture is largely focused on people. How you treat your people matters — not only to the benefit of their growth as an individual but to the health of your entire organization. We’re a group of consultants who believe virtually all organizations’ challenges are tied directly to their people — so that is where we apply our emphasis and expertise.

Ways a Healthy Organizational Culture Values Its People

So, what are the characteristics of a healthy organizational culture? We can’t promise all the answers here — there are just too many possibilities when it comes to cultural values. However, we’ve compiled a shortlist of undervalued characteristics that are crucial to valuing your people as part of your organization’s culture and core values. As you continue to evaluate and build a great organizational culture, these are items that should be carefully considered. And if they’re not already a part of your culture, how can you identify obstacles and then eliminate them as part of implementing a strategy toward organizational culture change?

Kindness — Inside Teams, Between Coworkers, Top to Bottom

On a recent episode of Brené Brown’s “Dare to Lead” podcast, James Rhee shared the following: “Creating a culture of kindness at work distributes the joy of problem-solving to everyone, creates a safe environment that unleashes innovation, and turns perceived liabilities into assets to create real equity value in every meaning of the word.”

At the top of our list for important cultural traits is kindness — we believe it matters that much! Everyone — you reading this included — deserves to feel valued in the place they spend so much of their day. As the quote above states, kindness allows your employees to feel safe enough to relax and focus on their job. That focus will allow them to thrive, do the very job you’ve hired them to do, and even do some risk-taking. But to feel safe, first, there must be kindness.

Kindness, as a trait of a company’s culture, also builds a reputable track record of trust over time. It’s commonly known that people are resistant to change, but when the time comes to make cultural change within your organization or simply shifts in teams or leadership, a history of kindness within your organization — from the leadership team to the entire company, from managers to their team members, from one coworker to the next — will make those necessary changes easier.

People Are Told They’re Appreciated — And Not Just After Big Wins

Not far off from kindness is the habit of telling people they are appreciated. It may be normal to celebrate after a big presentation goes well or when a quarter’s earnings far exceed expectations, but even every day, your people need to know they are appreciated.

Are your executives and managers vocally appreciative of their teams and individual staff? They should be. Is it a practice for team members to encourage one another? To call out accomplishments and small moments of savvy or brilliance in those they work with? A great organizational culture includes telling someone how much you appreciate them. After all, there’s a reason this person was added to the team, right?

Many corporate cultures move at such a fast pace, it’s not often organizations stop to look around and encourage. Yes, compensate employee improvement with practices like raises and bonuses, but everyday appreciation matters, too. Just as we mentioned with kindness, when people know they are appreciated, they are much more willing to listen and accept changes in organizational behavior and organization structures over time.

Leaders Make the Workplace a Learning Environment

Embracing and encouraging a growth mindset in your employees and team members supports their individual well-being (as a professional and a human being) and goes a long way in creating a sustainable future for your organization.

Indeed’s Editorial Team wrote a fantastic article on ways to create a learning environment in your workplace (read it here) and we at The Change Agents whole-heartedly agree with their thinking: it’s all about a growth mindset.

The Indeed article defines a workplace with a learning culture (or growth mindset) in this way: “… employees are encouraged to be open-minded, share ideas with team members and seek ways to develop their skills. Learning cultures encourage professional growth and development within a company.”

By embracing a learning culture from the executive level down, we believe you’ll create an environment where your employees not only want to spend their days, but continue to excel. In addition, you’ll encounter less issues in work quality and build stronger, more efficient teams.

As Indeed’s article also points out, encouraging questions from your team members will show you value their growth and humbly sharing when you’ve made a mistake or misjudgment will make employees more comfortable approaching you when they’ve done the same.

Change is Seen As Not Just Inevitable, But Important

History tells us change is inevitable. We’ve changed the way we live in our homes (electricity, indoor plumbing, smart systems like Alexa helping with our questions and tasks), how we travel (wagon, train, car, plane), and how we communicate (mail, telegraph, telephone, email, smartphone in your pocket) to name a very few. None of these changes happened overnight, but they have, in time, swept through society, eventually making what was once wildly new and unthinkable the norm. That is until something even newer and more change-inducing arrives on the scene. The same goes for our organizations and businesses.

Innovations to business management, critical thinking, and organizational processes allow for growth, societal improvements, and constant reinvention. Being able to embrace change doesn’t mean constantly changing — but it also doesn’t mean clinging to the status quo. Proactively seeking change can feel like a high-risk business strategy, but in all actuality, it’s not. Successful businesses and organizations have adaptive cultures that support organizational change.

We can’t avoid change because it will require breaking what has become protocol. It’s crucial to see the massive opportunity you have with change: it allows your organization an incredible opportunity to better live out the organization’s values and, in the process, improve the support of employees too.

Leadership Development is Embraced and Executed at All Levels

No one in your organization is too senior for coaching or leadership development — that humble, always-learning approach is not always a part of corporate cultures, but we think it should be. In fact, leadership development is an incredibly important boost to any organization’s immune system. For the overall growth of your organization, it’s vital that every employee continue to develop.

How that development progresses may look different for different organization members. It may be classes or annual conferences for team members and managers so they can continue to hone their skills and make connections with others in their field. For your leadership team, it may look more like executive coaching to overcome immediate hurdles.

In the executive coaching we do at The Change Agents, we’ve found that executive coaching is about cultivating a relationship of support and accountability to ensure any corporate change is sustained. We give our clients the promise that they will be supported long past the project end date. It’s important for your growth (and your organizational culture) that your leadership style continues to progress.

There’s No Doubt — Organizational Culture is Challenging

This is the first time in our nation’s history that five generations have been part of the workforce at the same time. The results are ever-present differences in perspectives, preferences, communication styles, and expectations. I mean, how do you even begin to keep a clear strategic vision with so many different views? The differences all put together can feel like an impossibly-wide ravine that needs to be leaped across with superhero strength any time you make an organizational development decision.

In addition, studies show that more than compensation, a proven purpose in our work efforts and the ability of managers and supervisors to personally relate to their teams are the primary drivers of work satisfaction. How do you continue to remind people of the reason they first connected to your organization’s values and ensure they still feel connected while stepping forward with culture change? It can certainly feel like a daring act of risk-taking.

And if that all wasn’t enough, businesses are increasingly making decisions about how they will move forward post-pandemic in terms of work models (in office, at home, hybrid). These complexities and a fast-changing environment require intention and skill to navigate.

The need for change may be inevitable, but we at The Change Agents believe the effect of the people within your organization is key to you making any successful change. Your people are the heart of your organization’s culture, and that’s why they must remain central to your focus.

Remember: A strong culture will extend beyond the location of your employees. It’s not about fancy buildings or offices. It’s about people and the connections your staff has with each other and the work of the organization. It’s about the mental and emotional environment more than the physical.

Organizational Culture is a Company-Wide Effort

Developing and maintaining a strong organizational culture takes participation by everyone in the organization. It does not work when it is viewed as solely the responsibility of the CEO and upper management. Your culture is not determined by the value statements and engagement commitments distributed to all employees. The culture is revealed by the behavior of the staff:

Again, this applies to every interaction within the organization. There’s a lot you can learn just from observing the basics of a workweek. Let’s use the example of an incredibly common practice in all organizational culture types: meetings.

How Meetings Can Impact Your Organizational Culture

Let’s consider a few things about meetings in your corporate culture or organizational culture:

How much time in a week does the average employee spend in meetings?

Do those meetings start on time? — and do they end on time?

Are those meetings out of habit or genuinely needed?

If your organization has a habit of meetings leaking over even just a few minutes, that may be creating unintended frustration and stress as employees arrive late to their next meeting. That meeting then goes over five or ten minutes, because they were waiting for all parties to arrive before starting. Employees may spend the entire day rushing from one thing to the next, never able to fully collect their thoughts from the last meeting before rushing into the next one, harried and not ready to really be present with the new matter at hand. If this is a usual practice, over time it can build unnecessary stress and bring about misunderstandings from coworkers who are frustrated someone can’t simply arrive on time or be ready to meet.

All from an organizational culture of meetings regularly running over.

Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen describe it this way in their book, “Out of Office”: “We need time to process information and prepare ourselves for the next obligation, but often don’t even build in enough space between meetings to go to the bathroom. One meeting that goes five minutes over in the morning can have a butterfly effect that goes on to affect 500 employees over the course of the day. Five minutes may not seem like much, but that hustled feeling you have when you arrive late to a meeting accumulates over the course of the day into an overarching frustration.”

This isn’t to say ending meetings on time or adding blocks of time between meetings in your company will fix every issue you’re encountering within your organization. But it may be one step to take, one culture change you can make to get closer to the desired culture of your organization. What other seemingly everyday, basic parts of your organization’s running can you evaluate and consider for culture change? It’s a question worth asking.

Cultivate Strong Organizational Culture with The Change Agents

The well-known management consultant and educator Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Drucker was pointing to the importance of the human factor in any company. What good is a detailed and strong strategy when the people executing it aren’t experiencing a culture of respect and well-being? The ability to deliver on that strategy will certainly be diminished, if not impossible, without a healthy organizational culture.

Our view on organizational culture is largely focused on people. How you treat your people matters — not only to the benefit of their growth as an individual but to the health of your organization. We’re a group of consultants who believe virtually all organizations’ challenges are tied directly to their people — and that’s exactly where we apply our emphasis and expertise.

It’s a different kind of consultancy, but one that supports an adaptive culture — or helps an organization and its organizational structures/organizational behaviors become an adaptive culture. Such organizations will lead the way, encouraging employee motivation, creating the desired culture for their people, and serving as exemplary models for cultural values within the workplace.

Let us help you get where you want to be within your organization. It doesn’t have to be a brand new culture. but all rewarding cultures begin with taking a look at what is present and asking the right questions. Let’s look and ask together.

—

Contact The Change Agents on our website or at 512-534-5510.