I’ve been studying culture and helping organizations get the most out of their culture for over a decade now.
Creating a competitive, purpose-driven culture in organizations is nothing new. It has been over 20 years since Collins’ Good To Great was published, 12 years since Sinek’s Start With Why was written and 10 years since Jack Welch wrote in Fortune Magazine, “an organization’s culture is not about words at all. It’s about behavior — and consequences.”
Every organization seems to have language around inclusion, engagement, empowerment - and yet, more than half of the organizations can't ever seem to actualize the idea of these topics as it relates to human talent and capital.
A few weeks ago on America Public Media’s Marketplace (“Quirky, bizarre, unusual — and strong” February 4, 2022 - minute 17:20) they had a story on job growth, resignation and retention. The reasons for people to leave their job for another job looked like this: higher salary was #1, work/life balance #2, career advancement #3. However, places that have been able to retain people, in the midst of the Great Resignation, had something in common too - a culture of caring about culture. Those places that can hang onto talent create a culture that's mission driven. They connect with employees and give them a sense of purpose. The story on Marketplace concluded that the real competition is around which organizations can create that sense of purpose for their employees.
Recently, a colleague of mine reached back out to me after I wrote a piece on Mission, Values and Vision. They mentioned, “having those guiding light statements makes everything else easier. I know from experience.” They went on to let me know they had recently done internal work on their Mission, Values and Vision and would I take a friendly look.
Upon reviewing them, I could see that a lot of passion and thought had gone into them. They were off to a good start! However, I wanted to give honest feedback to them about some areas of further exploration, development and growth I thought they could spend time on. I’m sharing some of that feedback that I sent them with you in hopes that you might find it useful too:
Their Mission checked off most of the boxes, but I still didn’t see the “why” they do what they do in their mission statement? Remember that a mission answers who you are, what you do, how you do it, for whom you do it for and, most importantly, why you do it. I asked them: what made the owner get into the business in the first place? What was the itch? What did they see missing from the marketplace that they thought they could add? What were they most passionate about, what could they be the best in the world at, and what drove their organization’s economic engine?
I liked their Values - most organizations don’t even bother with values. Values are the heartbeat of your organization (yes, foolish for any organization not to have them). Organizational values, like your human values, help you make important, ongoing decisions about your business. When I reviewed their values, there were a lot of them. Sometimes if we take values seriously and understand that’s how we’re going to make decisions on things like who to hire and who to fire, we have a tendency to adopt every kind of value for our organizations (the more the merrier right?). It’s a nice gesture, however, I have found that too many values can water the great ones down. I bet if you were to sit down with yourself and really think about what core values drive most of the decision making in your life, you’d probably come up with only 3 (mine are around faith, fairness, & servanthood). You and your team should work hard to identify 4-5 core values. To my friend, I suggested a good "hypothetical" stress test on their values could perhaps help them identify the really important ones. Here were a few questions I encourage them to answer as a team:
Would you fire someone for breaking any one of them? If someone wasn't practicing them (internally and externally) would you let them go? What is a real-life example of a fireable offense in your mind for each value.
Would you leave a million dollar contract on the table if the potential customer didn't respect/practice one of your values?
Would you leave a long-standing client if they didn't respect/practice one of your values?
Do some of these values prohibit you from doing work with certain industries/sectors (some companies won't do work with vices - alcohol, cigarettes, etc.)?
I then suggested simple ways to weave Values into their workplace daily to show the consistent focus on values to their staff, customers and community daily:
Put your values at the top of every meeting agenda.
Put your values in your email signature.
Put it on your recruitment material right at the top so candidates know the values that make up the organization.
Have them at the entrance of your office so staff and clients have to physically walk by them or under them each day.
When you publish an e-newsletter, have a section that highlights one of your values in each edition - perhaps it tells a story of where the team used the value, a team member shares why the value is so important to them/testimonial, celebrate a client that exercised one of your values, etc.
Have them printed out/stamped/framed on the community wall at work or above your at home computer.
Putting profit dollars behind expanding your team's knowledge of your values (have a subject matter expert do a workshop for your team on themes found in your values. Examples could be: active listening workshop, communication workshop, DEI workshop, team-building/trust course).
Have staff over for dinner and prep some questions about how these values matter in their personal and professional life.
When I reviewed their Vision statement it fell into the common trap we often find with vision statements - it sounded like a "now" statement. Visions are future-based! I suggested that they get together with their team and try these two exercises (they work for different types of visionaries):
Hot Air Balloon (Right Brain - emotion) - Imagine you're in a hot air balloon and you float over your organization and look down in 5 years, 10 years - what looks different? How have you grown? How have you become even better experts? What is the look, tone, feel of the firm (new people, new locations, broader reach, different medium, etc.), where have you had to change, adapt or pivot.
Portfolio of Big Ideas (Left Brain - logic) - Imagine that an investor, customer, relief funds, Oprah deposits a million dollars into your organization’s bank account. Money isn't a problem anymore. What would you do? What would your organization look like? What are 3-5 big ideas that you would do if you had a million dollars to make your business even better (that's your portfolio of big ideas).
In any organization, 3 things are happening simultaneously. The task, the process and relationships. Task is what we have to get done. Process is how we want to get it done. Relationship is the most important and most passed over ingredient (no surprise there). Relationships equal culture. Relationships equal retention. People may leave a job for a variety of reasons, but they will stay because of the intrinsic motivation that only culture and relationships can provide.