The name of this blog comes from our mission at INFLUENCE: “To empower people with clarity and confidence.”
Our objective is to provide brief but meaningful topics (under 500 words) that inspire, educate and empower leaders through resources both inside and outside of INFLUENCE. This week’s edition is provided by David Salmons.
Corporate values are sometimes faked, but not with good results.
Most of us at some point have found ourselves in corporate situations where values like “respect” were on the wall but not in the minds of the owners or leaders who set organizational tone. These false narratives about respect were perhaps as insulting as the disrespect itself, and it’s likely that they ended up reflected on sites like Indeed or Glassdoor, reducing the organization’s ability to attract talent.
Melissa Boggs, author, keynote speaker and leadership coach, uses an exercise analogy to explain this fake-culture dynamic. She says: “…just as exercising improperly or with bad form can do more harm than good, culture-building efforts implemented without the right level of grounding, commitment and follow-through can actually hurt your workplace culture.”
Taking a moment to expand on Melissa’s comment, let’s focus briefly on two frequently confused approaches to building good culture. These are: culturally grounded initiatives versus point-in-time initiatives.
Here’s an example of a point-in-time initiative: Leaders hire an outside professional to speak to employees about “problem solving ownership,” but the leaders themselves do not attend, and there is no ongoing conversation or continuity.
As Melissa notes, a point-in-time initiative – the opposite of a culturally grounded effort – does not create good culture. Instead, it highlights the absence of authentic positive values.
In contrast, a culturally grounded initiative will include:
- Leadership engagement and ownership of the initiative,
- Consistent messaging over a sustained period of time that includes WHY it’s important,
- Applied examples, such as: here’s what this value looks like in our environment,
- Feedback, such as: here’s how we’re doing, and/or here’s what clients are saying,
- Open discussions for processing.
As Melissa states: “Just like successful exercise programs, great workplace cultures are built by having a broad vision and purpose and pursuing it with commitment and consistency. Checking boxes doesn’t build culture.”
In summary, developing an effective corporate culture requires more than tossing point-in-time initiatives at employees. It requires efforts that are grounded in operational relationships, meaning clear and relentless messaging from engaged leaders who know WHAT values are important for success, and HOW to help teams recognize and respond to these values appropriately.