Bottom(s) up culture – Creating the future organisation
Finding the Direction
A cultural revolution is happening. The idea of cultural change being driven from the bottom rather than being imposed from the top is gaining momentum rapidly. There are many varieties of the idea that culture is what is done when the boss is away. I believe it is actually attributed to Henry Ford who said “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. And culture means doing the right thing when no one is looking.”
So how do you create the organisation and culture of the future?
The traditional approaches to developing corporate culture are dead. No longer is the domain of management to decide on a vision and mission and blindly go about implementing that vision. Often the hope is that the employees will buy into the vision and mission and thereby shape an appropriate culture. That is all that it is – a hope.The true corporate cultural renaissance comes from an inverted pyramid. At the bottom of the pinnacle of the pyramid sit the real actions of the team. This is the “what happens”. The rest of the organization sits on this point of the inverted pyramid. Management need to understand the actions of the team at a grassroots level; what do the team do? And more importantly, what do the individuals do when left to their own devices? What actions do the team members individually and collectively take in response to certain inputs? This defines the organisational culture on a far clearer level than vision and mission statements. At the top end of the inverted pyramid is the traditional mission and values of the organization. However, it is dependent on being aligned with the small point at the bottom of the inversion.What do management need to know about “this is how we actually do it”, and how do they apply it to accelerating and driving the cultural shift? What tools do the management and leadership team need to use to understand the culture of what actually happens?
The compass
The compass is the most basic of navigation tools, yet it has saved the lives of countless thousands of people. The compass is simple in its basic idea that the needle always points in a specific direction – magnetic north. You could say that the needle is attracted to that direction and almost expresses a “desire” to move in that direction. When I got my private pilot’s licence we were educated on the difference between true north and magnetic north. If you don’t know which one to use when navigating, or which north your equipment is showing, then you may lose your way quite quickly. The most relevant aspect of the difference is that it varies between places in the world. So, each place on earth has a different relationship between true north and magnetic north. In much the same vein, every country and culture operates on a different moral compass.
Applying the compass analogy
Culturally, the compass provides a number of ideas. In the corporation, the compass provides direction, albeit often in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, the compass analogy can be applied to various aspects of organisational life and culture and provides some direction in looking at:
- Employees moral compass as applied individually
- Team compass providing direction
- Varied directions taken by corporate silos
- Accepted societal norms of various locations
What moral compass are the employees using?
We would all like to believe that the moral compass of the organisation is perfectly aligned with that of the team - however, this is rarely the case. An example of this is an organisation that I had the experience of doing some work with in recent times. The culture of the organisation was (and unfortunately still is) to “blame someone else”. Whenever it was clear that the team had made an error, no-one stepped up and took responsibility. The blame game started at the slightest hint of an issue. Yes, it may be human nature - or as the saying goes “to err is human – to blame the other person Is more human” - but the core cultural problem is that the attitudes of the company at an employee level started with the leadership team, who shirked responsibility and always found ways to duck and dive around a problem without ever admitting some form of liability. The role of the leader is to step up and face responsibility even if they do not have a direct responsibility for the issue.
Making the hard call
In my business, and when speaking to groups, I make reference to two of my core philosophies which have always been “never ask staff to do anything you would not do” and to make sure that it is “the truth and the whole truth”.But how do these work in practice? In the mortgage business when faced with making a hard call to a client (a hard call is generally one with bad news), I have taken the opportunity to use the call in a couple of different ways. The first is that I encourage the staff to try and find some good news i.e. the lender may have declined your loan, but we have another alternative…. The second is that I personally make those calls from the open plan area, amid the staff. The staff see and hear that I am not afraid to make that call, and more importantly they gain valuable knowledge in how to approach these calls. Over the years the staff have drifted towards making the calls themselves, as they feel empowered and knowledgeable enough to do that with confidence.So how does this apply to the moral compass? I believe that as a leader, I have created an environment where the commitment to clients, through honesty and integrity, is at the forefront. This has helped align the moral compass of the team members with the corporate morality.
Creating the future organisation
There is no doubt that when management follow a process of finding out the what is done and the how is it done in the organisation, they will come across many aspects of corporate behavior that conflict with the preferred actions. The challenge then becomes about steering the ship to get alignment and direction. How do you move magnetic north to a point where everyone is comfortable with the compass pointing in that direction? Conversely, how do you manage those employees that resist the alignment of their direction with that of the organisation?The first step in the process is to understand the “what is done”. This is our role – to work out the “what” in the organisation through a process of anonymous consultation where employees can express their views and explain what they do in the times their boss is away. Where employees can explain the “what is done” in the times when the boss is away. The next few blogs will be exploring these ideas in more detail.
Why am I writing this?
When doing anything in life, it’s important to ask yourself why. The answer is BECAUSE –
- Because I want to share the ideas, stories, anecdotes and business tips and traps.
- Because I want to pay it forward.
- Because I want to help people grow their businesses.
- Because I want managers to become better managers.
- Because I believe that I can “Give your business the EDGE”