Culture: What is Lurking Beneath the Surface?
Culture is the Predictor of long term Organisational Success
I admit, I was a bit hesitant to write about culture. While it is a topic I am deeply passionate about, it is also complex. The 'culture' conversation can make even the most seasoned leaders uneasy. Culture can seem abstract, difficult to shape and measure. However, that does not diminish its value. Having a good culture is fundamental to cultivate environments where people and organisations thrive long term.
Culture will invariably either facilitate or impede our ability to solve problems and achieve our goals. It is the bedrock of long-term organisational performance. It drives engagement, wellbeing and performance. While I do not think we can manage culture directly, I do think we can influence and shape it. However, it is not an easy task. We cannot impose or control culture.
Limiting culture discussions to vague aspirational values like integrity, support, and collaboration is at best a waste of time if that is all we do. It does not lead to any meaningful changes. To drive real progress, we need to clearly identify the problems we aim to solve and the goals we seek to achieve. Then, we can identify the specific behaviors that will drive success, establish effective measurement methods and implement incentives to encourage their adoption.
According to psychologist Edgar Schein organisational culture is “(...) a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its problems… that have worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems” (Schein, 1985).
Culture is the total sum of everything an organisation has learned in its history both unconsciously and consciously. It evolves through shared experience, learning and sensemaking. Collective sensemaking is the ongoing process by which we as a group co-create meaning and structure the unknown. It is how we make sense of our reality, which enables us to make decisions and act (Weick 1995).
Culture is a social phenomenon. When we experience the positive impact of new behaviours we are much more likely to embrace them, which lead to shifts in our underlying beliefs and assumptions. That is how real culture change happens (not just surface level) - when new behaviours become embedded company norms.
Understand the Why of your Culture to drive Meaningful Change
To understand if our current behaviors support our goals we need to look beyond surface level values and norms and delve into the ‘why’ behind our behaviours and practices. Hence, we must first understand our existing culture: our shared behaviours, values, beliefs and norms - what are the underlying reasons for how we operate?
The following three steps are can be extremely helpful to assess the current culture:
Observe how teams work
Have teams self-assess their interactions and actions
Interview and survey people about their perceptions - why are they doing things this way
With a clear understanding of our current organisational culture, the problems we aim to solve and our goals, we can identify any misalignment between existing behaviors and those crucial for achieving success.
If gaps exist between our existing and desired culture we can:
Identify what new behaviours are needed
If we solve our problems, what will the behaviour look like in the future?
What actions will get us there?
How do we incentivise and role model those behaviours?
As the model below illustrates, cultural change only occurs when people have a positive shared experience of a new behaviour. Ongoing measurement of culture provides valuable insights into the impact of our efforts, allowing us to continuously inspect and adapt our approach.
Shaping Culture
Overview of how we can shape organisational culture.
Measurement Matters: Do not Underestimate It
While the intention is good, many companies fail to make good use of surveys. In my experience, these surveys are often so poorly designed that it leads to false conclusions due to unreliable and invalid data. Consequently, they fail to drive positive change. Instead, I've witnessed increased cynicism among employees, a decreased willingness to provide feedback and a decline in trust every time they were subjected to another meaningless survey.
A couple of weeks ago I had a good chat with Rob Hill, the Director of Product & Technology at Kudosity about culture and metrics. According to Rob, metrics alone are not enough, you also need to “(...)understand where you are going - what your goal is”. He explained to me how knowing what the right metrics are often is the hardest part but nonetheless key: “If you just try and make up metrics you are in a world of danger because you often end up incentivising the wrong behaviour”. To Rob, change in behaviour is key. Staff calibration is one of the incentives that Rob successfully has applied to change behaviour amongst leaders in their approach to reviewing staff performance: “By measuring each staff member you are incentivising leaders to understand each team member in depth.”
Measuring culture is crucial, but doing it poorly carries significant risks. So, how do we get started?
As Rob emphasised, not knowing why you measure something and applying the wrong metrics can lead to perverse incentives.
The true power of metrics lies in their ability to drive positive change when we ask the right questions (and act on the answers we get):
Why are we operating in this way?
Why are we interacting in this way?
I often find that companies not only do not know how to design and apply metrics that offer useful data, they also don’t know why they do it, which is arguably the most important aspect. Therefore the first question we need to ask is:
Why do we want to measure culture?
‘I want to know what my culture is, everyone else thinks we should or everyone else is doing it’ are not good answers! The clearer you can be about why you want to measure it the more purposeful and impactful your measurement will be. Your why informs your research design and approach.
It is often helpful to think about the following:
What problems are you trying to solve/what is the opportunity?
What behaviours help and hinder progress?
What is your goal?
Is there another way you could achieve the same goal?
How much time and effort do you want to invest in measurement?
What is the opportunity cost of measuring?
How do you intend to use the insights?
Are there risks you foresee and how do you intend to mitigate them?
Do you have the right capabilities available?
What is your research approach?
Do you want to observe a trend over time and response to change (longitudinal research)?
Do you want to look at correlations and differences between teams, departments, functions and locations ( cross sectional research)?
Are you looking at numbers (quantitative data) or context and sentiment (qualitative data)? Are you combining both approaches in a mixed method study and/or both approaches at different points in time?
If we truly want to understand culture we cannot rely solely on quantitative methods, which unfortunately is the current practice in many organisations. Simply knowing that something increased or decreased by x number does not tell us anything about the specific interventions that will result in the outcomes we seek. As UX designer Archie Miller aptly put it: “data is exhaust, not fuel.”
Qualitative data provides us with insights into people’s perceptions and attitudes. It helps us to understand cause and effect within the organisational system, what works well and how we need to improve. With a deeper understanding of the system, we are better equipped to effect positive change.
Avoid Culture Measurement Backfire
Measuring human behaviour and interactions can be incredibly powerful, but also potentially harmful if not done correctly. Expertise in this area is crucial. Below table shows common risks associated with measuring human behaviour and how to address them.
Breach of anonymity can have severe repercussions. I once witnessed a leader who, inappropriately accessed the raw survey data, identified individual feedback and subsequently confronted team members in a threatening manner. This created a deep sense of fear and severely damaged the trust in surveys and feedback at the organisation.
Conclusion
Organisational culture is a complex social phenomenon that either enables or hinders long term organisational success. By embracing a holistic approach to understanding our culture we can actively shape it. Meaningful culture change requires defining our desired culture and cultivating it through concrete actions. This goes beyond aspirational values; we must identify specific behaviors that drive success, establish effective measurement methods, and incentivise their adoption. Experiencing the positive impact of new behaviors reinforces them, which leads to shifts in the underlying beliefs and assumptions - this is how genuine cultural change happens.
Culture constantly evolves through shared learning, sensemaking and experience. However, without measuring it, we are just guessing. We cannot know if our culture is working for us or against us and we certainly cannot improve it.
References
Edgar H. Schein: Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View 1985, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Karl Weick: Sensemaking in Organizations 1995, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
