Culture - who we want to be

A helpful way might be to think of culture as being made up of three inter-related circles. I call them the 3Cs of organisations and they represent a number of different things that we can throw into the melting pot of what our culture is and how it works. It looks like this:

Code - Values, behaviours, norms and DNA - defining and living out what matters

So many organisations I have been to treat values like wall paper. They are either a tick-box exercise that they felt they should fulfil to be a proper company or else they were simply the un-owned vision of leaders who aspirationally want these to be a part of their organisation. Values are only ever really values if they are known, understood and, at least to an extent, lived out. All good values should be to some degree aspirational and we keep making them more and more who we want to be. 

Codifying them doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be written down, although it helps in organisations, even in my family we have an informal list of things we like to value that we add and take away from. But it is something bigger than this. Great organisations talk about values, they measure themselves against it, they make decisions based on it, they appraise the performance of themselves and others against them. Interestingly even when we can’t quite name them in a pithy sense we know when something is right. We say ‘oh yeah that feels like us’ or ‘that just smells right’.  When these things are codified they become a part of the language we use through our stories and anecdotes, our joking around, our imagery and symbols and they are embedded in our routines and habits. 

When codified well organisations set themselves up to allow values to be achieved and an enabling culture to flow. 

Climate - the emotional capacity and ability of the organisation - cultivate our environment 

All three of these elements are key but the ‘climate’ part of an organisation is the one that is so often missed or avoided. This is all about how well people in the organisation can handle stress, volatility and pressure and keep doing the things they are meant to. This is all about keeping a sense of presence when it matters most, Kipling would say ‘if you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs’. 

In his leadership book Failure of nerve Edwin Friedman said that leaders don’t fail because they lack technique or skill, but because they lack nerve and presence in the face of other people’s volatility and anxiety. And I have seen this borne out in so many places whether it be a ‘tiptoeing’ culture around awkward issues, the extreme responses of bosses, avoidance of key points, allowing of powerful rather than best voices to shape things and more. It is a bit like thinking that having a boil on your sole can be sorted out by choosing to walk on the side of your foot. This would never address the key issues, in the short term you might damage your foot but in the longer term whilst you may hobble about this would impact other parts of the body. 

Character - strengths, trajectory and connection of key members - becoming people who deliver

Who are we? And who are we becoming? The are really key questions and the sense around it is that we keep on growing, learning and becoming. I always tell people that I am not the person I want to be, but thankfully I am not the one I once was either. 

This is only in part about how you change people, it is more about how you change yourself and how you recognise what other people can bring. And in a moment of the ‘quick-fix’ and ‘on demand’ everything, this is a recognition that deep and lasting change often takes time and commitment. 

In every organisation all of these things are at play and affect one another. They also give rise to what is possible or not and an absence or noticeable deficiency in one of these areas will hinder moving forward. And it is really important to note that all cultures are a bit broken, no one organisation has this completely nailed down, admittedly some places have further to go than others.