How to Craft A Healthy Work Culture

Takeaways

Unveil the secrets to a thriving work culture. Learn strategies for a balanced, inclusive environment that drives organizational success.

How important is culture in an organization?

One of Peter Drucker’s more famous lines was that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” and that is saying something coming from one of the greatest strategists the business world has ever seen. Jim Senegal, the founder of Costco, was famous for his focus on culture so much so that he felt little else compared in importance as a leader.

What would culture equate to if you think of your business as a car? Is it the frame, the body, the steering wheel, or the tires?  In my model for organizational design, the culture holds down the essential function of the engine.  It is the force that is oftentimes, behind the scenes but supplying the power that drives the whole entity forward. 

I agree that there is a lot of room for debate here. I see some models that say that sales or marketing are the engine. My CFO friends swear that cash flow is the engine. A lot of non-profits, B-corps, and “for mission” companies would claim that the mission is the engine. But I see it differently. In the ideal organization, the mission, vision, and values would be the frame, the strategic plan would be the in-dash navigation system, sales, and fundraising would be the fuel system, operations are the electrical system, marketing is the body and paint, your team is your transmission, leadership is the steering wheel, brake and gas pedal, finance is your oil and your culture is your engine.

While culture plays this foundational role in organizational life, it is also the arena that seems to have great mystique and confusion about what it is and how to create it.  With over three decades of being in the primary culture creator seat, sometimes doing it very poorly and sometimes seeing it fire on all cylinders, here are some of my favorite ideas on keeping your culture engine humming like a well-oiled machine.

·      Form a culture around your ideal team, not your personal preferences

Culture creation can’t be a subtle way to get your way as the leader. Leaders who turn the organization into a place where their preferences reign supreme, often do so at the expense of creating the team of their dreams. I hate to sound self-serving but honestly, this is where an advisor is incredibly helpful for executives. Someone who can kindly but firmly hold up the mirror and help a leader see that the culture they are creating is excluding the talents of others whose preferences, experiences, and ideals may be different from the leaders, resulting in a weaker, monolithic organization.

The debate around remote versus hybrid or in-person work is really about this issue and less about where people work. It is almost always a case of a senior leader enforcing their preferred model of working on the team around them.  Great culture is not formed by leaders forcing their preferred environment on their current team, but instead by asking what environment best serves the needs of the team and what will attract the type of people that would make our organization thrive.

Leaders who can envision and craft a culture that serves their team over their self-interests and preferences will have a strong culture engine.  And, as leaders, they can often find ways to still enjoy their preferences from time to time in ways that will not conflict with their team's best interest.

·      Use mental models to let people know what is expected

As a student, I always appreciated the professors who would let us know what might show up on the final exam. I’m almost sure that I learned more in their classes because I felt confident going into the exam that I was mastering the content the professor expected of me, versus the sheer panic that I felt going into a final where the professor gave no direction leaving us to frantically try to master everything in an entire field of study in one semester. A culture of chaos is just not conducive to learning or performing well.

In organizational life, when employees don’t know what the leader expects of them, performance reviews or even one-on-one check-ins can feel like a test where the professor has provided no guidance on what is expected. Most people feel afraid, a bit chaotic, and like they have little chance of succeeding.

While there are a lot of techniques to help resolve this, I believe mental models are one of the most powerful. A mental model is simply a way of thinking or being that you have clarified so your team can live it out.  Most leaders do this innately but the ones that make these mental models clear are excelling at culture creation.

“Bias Toward Action” is a mental model that is not unique to me, but I have used it for years with several organizations because it is something I expect each teammate to embody. But without describing it, putting it into a document that describes this mental model, and training on it, it would be unfair to expect that everyone is going to have a bias toward action.  Saying we value a bias toward action is good but explaining what it means in a short paragraph gives your people something to work toward embodying this concept.  For me, it sounded like this:

Bias Toward Action - In this fast-paced environment, those who sit back and wait to be called on, checked on, or handheld will get left behind.  If you want to excel here, you have to want it and chase it.  If you need clarity, ask for it.  If you need a budget increase, take action.  Speed matters to us. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We pay people to make decisions and solve problems, not to sit back and point them out.  We are fine with asking for forgiveness instead of permission (most of the time). Good intentions don’t matter around here – only actions.

A key part of culture creation is creating your list of mental models.  These are the ways that you think as a leader, the ideals you want your team to embody, and the definitions of the standards everyone is held to with a performance review. I’ve always listed them in a key document, introduced them to new employees during their orientation as a way of introducing our culture, and trained them on each mental model in meetings to keep them fresh. 

In my next post, I will share more of my favorite mental models I have borrowed from Google, Amazon, Netflix, Navy SEALS, Telsa, and a host of other companies.  These concepts don’t have to be unique to you, but your list should encompass what you expect of your people and are oftentimes a more concrete expression of your values.

When you describe clearly what you expect, and you let people know during performance reviews how they are doing in relation to what is expected, you are creating a place where confidence can rise, people are clear on how to excel and the result is that most will. 

·      Support healthy boundaries without creating guilt

As I work with clients, in most engagements I will use an employee survey to get a sense of what is happening in the inner workings of the organization’s culture. One of the great tensions that often surfaces is when employees feel guilty about the boundaries they have tried to create to stay healthy as a person.

Now certainly, there are situations where an employee may use the concept of “boundaries” as an attempt to avoid being a team player or to defend their laziness.  Yes, that happens but more often is the case of a good employee who gives more than is required but is still feeling guilty when the organization continues to overstep their expectations.  How can we solve this?

This is a management issue, and managers need two key tools to solve this situation.  First, and most importantly, they need to genuinely care for their employees. If they don’t share the employee's concern for their well-being as a human, they should not be in management. Managers are not responsible for managing the work-life balance for an employee but they should be engaged with the lives of their employees to know when that employee is struggling to do it well. When employees know that their manager is kindly treating them with dignity, empathy, courage, and truth, they can handle the inevitable times that they need to bend their boundaries on behalf of work.  

Second, managers need the authority and resources to resolve these boundary encroachments quickly. When work encroaches on their boundaries and starts to endanger their health, managers need to be able to work quickly to resolve that by giving time off, adjusting deliverables, or even bringing in additional help.  Most people can manage a sprint season, where the organization is stretching towards a big goal. Managed well, it can energize a team. But when that pace becomes normal, you will lose your best people unless the managers who are dialed into the well-being of the team are empowered to resolve these frustrations right as they begin. As leaders, we need to listen and support managers when they need to restructure to keep teammates healthy or hire additional help to keep sprints from sending the team off the rails.  If your people are unhealthy, your culture will be too.

·      Distribute work equitably

We are living through an exciting season where thinking about how to make the workplace more equitable and inclusive is accelerating at a rapid pace. This has been a long time coming and our organizations will be far better for it in the long run. For some, it may feel scary and you may feel unsure how to embrace this, but don’t let that stop you from stepping towards it. Be courageous and step into a world that is more just, compassionate, and equitable.

With some clients, a simple way to get started is to take a look at your current team and be honest about how equitable roles are right now.  Are some people burning out because they are having to compensate for weaker players?  Do some people carry a nice title, but not the weight that comes with their role? You should deal with that now because they are quite often the ones that will hold your culture back from equitable and inclusive objectives moving forward. 

There is so much to do as we pursue cultures that are more inclusive, diverse, and equitable that I see some organizations paralyzed, afraid of doing something wrong, and completely unsure of where to start. This gives you a starting place that any of us can use, just don’t let it be the place you stop.  Keep taking thoughtful, progressive steps forward in this area. The arc of the moral universe is long but it will inevitably bend toward justice. As leaders, we choose to place the weight of our influence on the moral arc either toward or against justice throughout our lifetimes.

·      Provide work with purpose

It has been fascinating to watch Amazon attempt to quell the surging frustration of their gargantuan warehouse workforce's desire to unionize.  Their solution?  A pay increase. Did it work?  Not even a little.

I think they missed the point, as oftentimes we do as leaders when our employees express a lack of enthusiasm for their jobs.  In most roles today, receiving good pay is the bronze level for employee satisfaction. It is appreciated but no one is excited about it. Employees simply expect to be compensated fairly for their time and expertise. We can’t build a winning culture by providing that alone.

Great culture creators go beyond great pay to also provide a sense of purpose, fulfillment, and meaning in the role. While it may cost you some time, effort, and thought to create jobs with meaning, it rarely costs a lot of money but the chance of retaining an employee who feels their work matters to someone goes through the roof compared to retaining an employee simply because of a bump in pay.

It is why we get so many requests to offer feedback on everything from online tech support to the cashier at Home Depot.  What is happening there? The company is trying to help employees know if they made someone’s life better today.  Will buying something at Home Depot change my life? Probably not. But if Cheryl, in her orange vest in the plumbing section, was kind and engaging while giving me good advice on how to fix that leaky faucet, and handed me the right part as well, it could very well turn a frustrating afternoon around, right?  And if Home Depot provides me with a mechanism to share that, and then lets Cheryl know that she made my day, that cashier goes home feeling great about their job and more importantly shows up the next day with a smile on her face wanting to do that again for every customer.

Non-profits have some advantages in this area if they can find ways to connect each employee to the impact that they are making in their programs. But no matter the mission of the company, helping each employee know that their work matters to someone in the world, may be the most important thing you could do for them.

The effort to create a healthy culture that serves as the engine of the organization is perhaps the most essential function of leaders. To me, it was also one of the most rewarding functions as it makes such a difference in the experience of our teammates.