Move in the Right Direction with a Culture Champion
Organizational culture spirals inward and downward when left to itself.
Decline is the consequence of neglect and folly.
It’s never a fluke when people come to work with commitment and energy.
Building a positive culture is a series of intentional interventions.
Teams wander, projects fail and organizations flounder apart from champions. Every organization needs a culture champion.
Culture Champion:
If you aren’t working to improve culture, it’s drifting down hill.
Three marks of a culture champion:
#1. Belief.
Culture champions believe success is all about culture. Yes, you have to do the work. But there’s more.
The most important thing about us is the way we treat each other while we do the work.
#2. Dissatisfaction.
If everything smells like roses, something’s wrong with your nose. Choose a culture champion who smells rotten culture and hates it.
Complaints are the underbelly of positive desire.
Don’t soothe the complaints of champions. Explore their commitments. What would you like to do about that?
The difference between a complainer and a leader is passion to make things better.
Complaints inform commitments.
#3. Passion.
Culture champions own the vision of building great culture.
You might nudge a champion to get on the pony but you don’t have to pressure them to ride.
5 things culture champions do:
- Clarify and own success. “If we succeed, how will we be treating each other?”
- Shepherd culture forward. “How are we staying on target?”
- Monitor progress. “How are we moving toward our goals?”
- Shine a light on concerns, issues, and shortfalls. “What’s not working?”
- Fuel energy in others. Energy in champions gives energy to the team. “How can we be better?”
5 culture building activities:
#1. Appoint a Culture Champion.
#2. Create a culture calendar.* Schedule culture building activities. Do you believe in relationships? How are you intentionally strengthening connections?
#3. Begin meetings with culture building. Reflect on a specific organizational value, for example. “If we saw someone living this value, what would we see them doing?”
#4. Honor behaviors that reflect values. You probably measure and reward results. How are you honoring people who reflect non-financial values?
#5. Train leaders on how to model organizational values.
What factors contribute to building a positive culture.
*The idea of a culture calendar comes from Culture Wins.
Added resource: The Culture Code.
(I relax my 300 word limit on weekends.)
Culture is one of the most misunderstood words within an organization. What does it really mean? I particularly like your question Dan, “If we saw someone living this value, what would we see them doing?” Values are quite often a single word posted somewhere on a website or in a glossy brochure with no meaning or proof attached to the words. Where is the proof we are living and breathing our values?” For example: If one value was Integrity (Ethical business dealings) : MEANING Doing the right thing, standing behind our words, living and breathing our values. PROOF: Our customers trust and value our contribution. Our reputation is a company others wish to do business with. Our success is measured by customer and employee retention, Receiving 90% positive feedback from all stakeholder groups. Having KPIs attached to your values gives you a platform from which to build and measure culture.
Thanks Caro. It’s important to move from theory to practice. We begin to understand when we can act on theory. Your comment drives us in the direction of behaviors.
When it comes to culture, If you can’t see it, it doesn’t matter.
Dan, do you not need a culture to champion in order to benefit from a culture champion?
Well, you need a commitment to build a good culture. Thanks Mitch. BTW, all organizations have a culture.
Dan
Someone said Culture and Leadership are the flip side of each other, like two sides on a coin.
But leadership is not just the CEO, it is every manager or department or business head who can build a team based on values and traditions that can last.
Brad
Thanks Brad. Of all the things organizations do, culture building requires buy in from the folks at the top.
One suggestion in “Culture Wins” is to have one person on every team who meets regularly with the culture champion to energize sustainable progress.
At my college, we have been working on defining and building the culture in our School of Business & IT.
The five words we selected to describe our culture are
–Professional
–Supportive
–Collaborative
–Challenging
–Innovative
Once a semester, we discuss what behaviors we are engaging in that support various words and where have we fallen down.
Building a strong culture takes time and attention.
Thanks Paul. Yes, the work of culture building is always in process. In one sense, we are always beginning, but never finishing.
Best wishes on your journey and congratulations for doing something in this arena.
Your very first sentence says it all. “Organizational culture spirals inward and downward when left to itself.” Many organizations, even big organizations forget or neglected to develop the company culture. In the long run, positive culture will sustain a good company into greatness.
Thanks Eric. The real test of leadership is when things are going well. Can you maintain focus on building culture when you’re successful?
The second test is building culture when things are going poorly. Sometimes we allow old patterns to take over when we’re under stress. For example, it’s great to put people first when waters are calm. But what do you do when seas are rough?
Dan,
If we have successfully built a culture we have to keep building the direction we wish the culture to continue to develop.
How do we define cultural growth? Perhaps it’s who we reach and how we reach them?
I see “Paul Thornton” has the building blocks layed out rather well.
Keep building with everyone on board.
Dear Dan,
A very useful post to instil good organization culture in well planned manner.
Liked the idea of appointing A Culture Champion with KPIs! He then takes the responsibility of creating a core team to educate and train different hierarchy staff to practice things per the laid down norms and follow good systems & systems. Values can be imbibed with a top-bottom approach where CEO needs to play an exemplary role.
It’s true that changing organization culture require good patience and time with the needed consistency. We need to celeate small achievements periodically and inspire others to adopt to the desired new things.
HR can play a major role while owning the responsinility of A Culture Champion!