4 Steps to Creating a Healthy Organizational Culture

4 Steps to Creating a Healthy Organizational Culture4 Steps to Creating a Healthy Organizational CultureEvery organization develops an organizational culture. Sometimes company cultures just happen. They develop over time from the interaction of the people in an organization. Nobody ever sat down and thought through what they wanted the company to become. It just happened. Some company founders sit down and discuss the type of culture theyd like to have from day one. They are focused on creating a specific culture. Sometimes they succeed at this, and sometimes they fail. Why would they fail if they are so set on developing a specific culture? The Purposeful Culture Group offers explanations. Heres what you need to know to shape your organizations culture purposefully. Only Senior Leaders Can Modify Their Organizations Culture Joe in accounting is a great guy who is always friendly, kind, and fair, but his behavior is notlagelage enough to change the organizations overall culture. Steve in marketing can act like a jerk, but his bad behavior isnt enough to land the company in the worst places to work list. But, the behaviors of senior leaders do cause changes to the overall organizations culture. To help guide senior leaders to become more attentive to culture and intentional about culture, consider these tips from S. Chris Edmonds, CEO of the Purposeful Culture Group. Make your culture as important as results, your values as important as productivity.Your organization has stated performance expectations and works to hold everyone accountable for those expectations. What most organizations dont have are expectations about values, liberating rules that ensure cooperation, teamwork, validation, and (yes) fun at work. With both performance expectations and values expectations formally defined and agreed to, you know youve spelled out exactly how you want everyone to behave. Do you say that your organizations culture is one of openness and honesty, but you make b ig decisions behind closed doors? If an employee complains about something, are they praised for bringing the issue to senior managements attention, or shunned for being a nay-sayer or tattletale? Many companies say that they value one type of action, but they would never punish a manager for violating those culture rules. Make sure that you hold everyone inyour organization to the culture guidelines. If you arent holding everyone to them, its not your actual culture. Make them observable, tangible, and measurable. If you ask ten people in your company what integrity means, youll get ten different answers. (Maybe twenty.) You must define your values in behavioral terms. Craft I value statements that outline how you want people to behave. You might decide that integrity means I keep my promises or I do what I say I will do. Those specific behaviors leave little wiggle room for interpretation. Note that youre only defining desirable behaviors rather than making statements like I dont curse at my customers. Formalize only the behaviors you want everyone to model. I statements are somewhat difficult to craft if you arent completely clear on what you mean. Lots of companies- especially in the startup world- want to have fun cultures. But what does that mean? Does that mean you play sports or have water fights at lunch? If you cant define what a fun culture means, you cant enforce and measure it. It is a critical step that takes a lot of time but do not skip it, or youll never shape the culture you want. Live your valued behaviors in every interaction. Just telling people how you want them to behave doesnt mean theyll immediately begin acting that way. Leaders must be role models of desired valued behaviors. How leaders embrace, model, and coach these valued behaviors is how team members will (or wont) embrace them. Leaders modeling behaviors is powerful- and they must validate others modeling desired behaviors and redirect folks who are not modeling desired behavio rs. Living your stated values may also mean making hard decisions. If your stated value is fairness, and your I statement is I treat everyone equally, you have to fire the office bully, even if she brings in the highest sales and large amounts of money. It may seem painful to the bottom line, but your employees wont take your culture seriously if you dont make hard decisions in line with the values. Hold everyone accountable for living your valued behaviors, daily.Dont tolerate bad behavior any longer. Just as meeting performance expectations deserves reward and recognition, so too should modeling desired valued behaviors. And, just as missing performance expectations deserves redirection and coaching, so too should not modeling desired valued behaviors. By holding people accountable for both performance and values, you increase the frequency of desired performance and desired values. It is the most critical step. You cant let a value slide because its crunch time or a big client th at you cant afford to lose is involved. If you do, then your real values are different than the stated values, and your real culture is not whats printed on the plaque in your break room. As a leader, the most important rolle to hold to this standard is yourself. You cant make exceptions for leadership or high performers. Its either the companys value or its not. Holding people accountable every day will make a world of difference in how your companys culture grows and becomes a positive work environment. With a positive work environment, youll see employee performance improve as well, and youll make your workplace a more attractive destination for top quality employees. Suzanne Lucas is a freelance journalist specializing in Human Resources. Suzannes work has been featured on notes publications including Forbes, CBS, Business Insider and Yahoo.