A few weeks ago Harvey MacKay wrote in his syndicated column about the idea that if you take care of the culture in your organization, everything else will follow. I couldn’t agree more. Actually I believe this is true in a business organization, a family, or a country.
Culture is similar to personality in that it is largely a subconscious collection of attitudes, beliefs and actions which influence individual behaviors and, therefore, results. So the culture of an organization becomes the collective beliefs, attitudes and actions of the employees. Organizational performance, therefore, is a direct result of the culture within an organization. Seems to me like creating a robust, healthy, empowering culture where employees feel valued and appreciated for their contribution is a pretty powerful leadership imperative. Unfortunately, many people in leadership positions (I’m tempted to say most!) spend very little time thinking about or intentionally focusing on creating a culture that supports their intended goals.
There are many, many reasons for this, but I suspect one of the key reasons for not doing so is the fact that most companies don’t tangibly measure and reward the ‘softer’ side of their business. They are looking for a quick fix. But just like the stock market, investments in people and organizational capability are long-term propositions yielding benefits over time, not over night. The fact is most managers get rewarded for meeting financial goals not for building an organization capable of reaching financial goals. But how are the employees supposed to be able to meet the financial goals if there is little overt attention paid to positively creating and supporting their skill and the overall organizational capability?
Very frequently my clients can tell me what they wish for, what they think is wrong, what they are experiencing as undesirable results, but few take the time to determine the root cause. Here are a few examples of root causes which adversely impact both human and financial performance.
- High turnover costs are often rooted in poorly defined job expectations and weak hiring processes.
- Employees feeling they aren’t listened to stems from weak management skills and few, if any, intentionally designed communication processes.
- Work force members not knowing where the company is going is due to leadership not specifically defining and sharing company goals and failing to highlight the key role employees play in making these goals a reality.
- Favoritism emerges in the absence of objective standards of performance as a basis for performance evaluations.
- Questionable behaviors and ethical issues arise when companies don’t have well-articulated values or when the values they have are platitudes rather than benchmarks for how the company is run.
- Top performers become concerned when they can’t see a career path and little attention is paid to succession planning.
While these are just a few of the more common examples, you get the idea. Almost any leadership issue that comes up is grounded in organizational culture. It all comes down to the 5 P’s – People, Processes, Policies, Practice, and Procedures. Examine these and you’ll find the root cause of performance issues.
* * * * *
Deb Waitkus and I are co-facilitating three corporate-learning workshops used to anchor concepts – Birdies, Bogeys and Business: Success On and Off the Course, Mental Mulligan’s, and the Two-Day Golf School. All are ways to build your team, increase your skills and add new tools to your bag.