Transforming your Workplace Culture with Behaviours

Leaders can often wade through the murky waters of culture ill-equipped with little understanding about how to effectively manage organizational culture. No leader wakes up in the morning thinking “I can’t wait to get to work and do everything I can to drive the most toxic, ineffective culture possible for my company”. Yet, many leaders get caught out by the wrong behaviours becoming dominant in their organization, and some of them end up unintentionally harming employees, customers or communities, resulting in shutdowns, lawsuits and media scandals.

There are three cardinal misconceptions in understanding and managing organizational culture:

1. Adopting values that sound right or mimicking successful peers
2. Assuming engagement surveys or qualitative deep dives are accurate measures of your organizational culture
3. Acting to enhance organizational outcomes you care about (sales, wellbeing, engagement, risk management) in the absence of understanding how your culture drives these outcomes

In this article, we unravel these issues and hope to give leaders practical insights and recommendations on identifying, measuring and embedding the right culture to enable their organizations to achieve great things and stay out of trouble.

Understanding the Essence of Culture

I often hear leaders say “We have a great culture, everyone loves working here”. They believe culture reflects the collective happiness or satisfaction of their organization. This immediately shows me that they don’t understand what organizational culture is and, sadly, cannot be strategically harnessing it for organizational success.

Engagement, morale and culture are confused as one and the same. However, this misconception couldn’t be further from the truth. Culture is the unspoken norms and behaviours that members of an organization instinctively follow. When an individual joins a new company, they quickly learn these, adjusting and adapting, often without even realising it.

Hundreds of organizational behaviours could be distilled into 30 distinct behaviours that make up the blueprint of how people and organizations behave. These 30 behaviours drive a myriad of business outcomes, from outcomes that directly impact the bottom line (sales, performance, productivity) to outcomes that keep companies out of trouble (risk management, financial crime, safety compliance) and even outcomes that drive engagement and morale (well-being, trust, belonging, psychological safety).

Start Focussing on Behaviours, Not Results

Leaders get so caught up in wanting to drive outcomes - "we need to increase performance", "we need to enhance wellbeing", "this quarter we are going to drive engagement" - and so all of the focus, intervention planning and resources are put into trying to enhance these outcomes. Little goes into accurate, precise attention and focus on what moulds these outcomes – behaviours.

To steer any vessel effectively, one must understand the difference between the destination and the course. Outcomes, like improved performance or heightened engagement, represent the desired destinations. Behaviours, on the other hand, are the courses charted – patterns of actions or interactions that drive an organization toward these destinations.

The Manifestation of Behaviours

Critically, behaviours manifest in two distinct and interconnected ways:

Individual Behaviour: This pertains to how single members of the organization act and respond. It is driven by individual capability and the willingness to act in certain ways. For instance, an employee’s dedication to continuous learning or their responsiveness to feedback.

Organizational Behaviour: This reflects the organizational environment. It’s the behaviour that employees observe around them and is a powerful driver or inhibitor of individual behaviour. This pertains to organizational processes, systems and established ways of working. For example, the organization’s informal reward systems that give accolades to employees who support their colleagues.

Here's why focusing on behaviours is transformative:

• Behaviours are tangible and modifiable: unlike outcomes, behaviours are observable. They can be identified, assessed and directly adjusted. By spotlighting behavioural patterns, organizations can craft actionable strategies to reinforce or rectify them
• Predictive power: behaviours often serve as leading indicators. Before any outcome materialises – be it good or bad – there's usually a consistent pattern of behaviours leading up to it. Recognizing and addressing these patterns early can help shape desired outcomes
• Inclusivity and empowerment: while outcomes might seem distant and broad, behaviours are immediate and personal. By fostering a focus on behavioural standards, every employee, regardless of their role, has a stake in shaping the culture.

While outcomes present a snapshot of an organization's current state, it's the behaviours that shape its future trajectory. For leaders aiming for sustained success, the formula is straightforward: prioritize behaviours as primary levers and allow outcomes to naturally follow.

In essence, to truly influence results and cultivate a thriving organizational culture, leaders need to shift their gaze from the distant horizon and focus on the steps right in front of them.

Off-the-shelf Models and Values Do Not Work

Delve into any leading management book, white paper or keynote speech and you’ll likely stumble upon models or values presented as the universal remedy for organizational challenges. They draw you in with promises such as 'Follow these steps, and you'll see transformation'. But the realm of organizational behaviour, leadership and culture often suggests the existence of universal truths, instead. These are solutions that, when applied across the board, promise to lead to outcomes every leader dreams of -  soaring sales, unwavering resilience, a loyal consumer base and so forth.

Consider the interplay of behaviours and outcomes as an intricate web, where every thread holds significance. This web isn't manufactured in bulk but is a unique tapestry for each organization, interwoven with its specific nuances and contextual factors.

The implications of this revelation are two-fold:

• Avoid copy-paste culture strategies: just as a neighbour's key won't fit your front door, their organizational strategies won’t necessarily unlock success in your company. Emulating external models without adapting them to your unique context is a misstep.
• Beware the off-the-shelf consultants: whilst external guidance can provide invaluable insights, it’s crucial to ensure consultants are tailoring strategies to your organization, rather than deploying a generic playbook.

Every Employee is Accountable for Culture

In any organization, leaders undeniably hold a pivotal role. They're often seen as the architects, crafting vision and shaping strategic direction. In the sphere of organizational culture, they emerge as its custodians. They set the tone, guiding principles and delineate the values that become the pillars. Yet, while they initiate and nurture this culture, its true essence thrives on collective ownership.

Leaders: Steering the Ship

As custodians, leaders are responsible for setting clear expectations and exemplifying the behaviours they wish to see. Their actions, decisions and communications shape perceptions and establish norms. This idea of establishing the “tone from the top” or role modelling the desired culture and behaviours is well-documented and understood by most leaders, but it is often over-relied on as the only method through which cultural norms are established.

Although leaders are the torchbearers, illuminating the path for the rest to follow, a torchbearer alone doesn’t light up the entire landscape. That's where every employee comes into play.

Every Employee: The Keepers of the Flame

While leaders set the stage, it's the collective everyday actions of employees that bring culture to life. Think of culture as a living organism, evolving with every interaction, decision and process. Each employee, in their daily duties and interactions, either reinforces or challenges the established cultural norms. Thus, while leaders are the custodians, every individual is accountable for nurturing and sustaining the cultural fabric.

For instance, consider a company that values open communication and expressiveness. While the leadership can champion this through town halls and transparent discussions, it truly comes to life when an entry-level employee feels empowered to voice their opinion in a team meeting or when colleagues actively listen and respond to each other's perspectives.

Embracing the Symbiotic Relationship

There exists a symbiotic relationship between leadership and the broader employee base when it comes to culture. While leaders lay the foundations and uphold the standards, the continuous reinforcement from every corner of the organization ensures that the desired, targeting culture is embedded. The greater the size and complexity of the organization, the more difficult it is for leader role modelling and “tone from the top” to consistently help illuminate culture, and the more critical employees roles are in nurturing and driving that culture.

Leaders must ensure that their actions mirror their words, creating an environment of trust and setting the standard and every employee should recognize their influence. Whether in team meetings, client interactions or casual coffee breaks, their behaviours contribute to the organizational culture's mosaic.

To truly foster a thriving organizational culture, it’s essential to embrace this dual responsibility. Leaders must cultivate. Employees must nurture. Together, they sculpt a culture that resonates, evolves and drives success.