Simon D’Arcy - Online Journal

When you think of the word ‘Culture,’  what is the first thing that comes to your mind?    Most of the groups Ii ask this question, usually say something like, ‘France’ or something like that.   You know, a place where people talk differently, eat differently, drive differently than what you may be used to.   The same goes for organizational cultures.  A quick and dirty definition for organizational culture is this:  How people behave and relate to these business realities:

• getting the work done
• conflict
• decisions they didn’t make
• mandates
• internal change
• market changes
• new people
• conflict
• competition
• deadlines
• not meeting deadlines
• other people not meeting deadlines
• incomplete communication
• people dressing funny
• people being different
• rules
• procedures
• authority
• leadership
• put yours here….

Not all organizational cultures are created equal.   Some corporate cultures are adaptive (see Kotter’s book Corporate Culture and Performance),  while others less so.  Wikepedia distinguishes between strong organizational cultures and weak organizational cultures as follows:

• Strong culture is said to exist where staff respond to stimulus because of their alignment to organizational values. In such environments, strong cultures help firms operate like well-oiled machines, cruising along with outstanding execution and perhaps minor tweaking of existing procedures here and there.^[2]
• Conversely, there is weak culture where there is little alignment with organizational values and control must be exercised through extensive procedures and bureaucracy

When we analyze the strength of an organization’s culture we are looking at three primary factors:

1. How well do people partner with each other to produce results- how well do people collaborate in the face of competing agendas, different time-frames and multiple perspectives?
2. What level of accountability / ownership do employees take not only for their work, but for the overall success of the company?
3. How engaged are your employees?

When these three factors are strong, an employee will exhibit a whole host of behaviors  beneficial to the company that would otherwise be absent.  These high performance behaviors generate ·

• Emerging Redundancies. These are layers of oversight, management, procedure, policy, and protocol for which the need has evaporated (due to increased levels of employee accountability and better communication). Gains here will account for just over one third of the total ROI.
• Breakthrough innovation and creativity. The ability to take on projects and coordination previously difficult or impossible because of a function-oriented culture (where collaboration between functions was difficult or non-existent due to silo mentality, turf protection, conflict, lack of trust, or blaming behaviors. This innovation accounts for nearly another third of total ROI.
• Increased new revenue and retention of current revenue. This will account for about one quarter of total ROI. The customer experience and their emotional connection to your company dramatically improve. Increased employee engagement leads to a better client experience, which leads to new customers and expanded presence inside current customers.
• Reduced turnover and other efficiencies account for the last 10-15% of the total ROI. Keeping and attracting your best and brightest because they don’t want to work anywhere else becomes a hallmark of the new culture.

Higher employee engagement correlates directly to higher ROI. Engaged employees, through their high performance behaviors drive the success of the business mission, and are the lifeblood of profitability.

Employee engagement is a function of “say, stay, and strive.” Does the employee ‘say’ good things about the company, its senior management and their directives, and their co-workers? Does the employee ‘stay’ with the company? And does the employee, un-asked, devote significant discretionary effort—‘strive’—for the company, their direct managers, and their co-workers?

What kind of employee engagement numbers do you have? Most senior execs have a good sense, without a formal survey, of where their employee engagement levels are. If more than half your people are not saying good things, don’t want to stay, and are expending only enough effort to “do their job,” there is an upside. The breakthrough will be dramatic.

Imagine the atmosphere of your company at plus 80% levels of employee engagement—where more than 8 out of 10 say great things about senior management, align with directives and the mission, wouldn’t want to work anywhere else, and give extraordinary amounts of discretionary effort to make the company successful. Where they collaborate effectively and enthusiastically, execute according to plan, fulfill commitments, do what they say, and display confidence, integrity, pride and passion in their professionalism.

This is work that I am most passionate about.  Helping courageous leaders who get the value proposition of helping create an adaptive, strong, high-performance culture that not only directly impacts bottom line results, but also creates a work  environment that people want to come to work for.