For every time I am asked about impacting culture, I would certainly still be doing what I do because I find so much joy and purpose in this work. But I would also have a beach house right up next to the ocean so I could hear the waves crash every night as I drift off to my happy place.
Culture cannot be bought. It can’t be trained. It has to be developed over time through a million little decisions, actions, responses, wins, recoveries and moments of vulnerable leadership.
I don’t want to start an argument with the great consultants out there who come in and offer Culture Growth programs. They are fabulous people and they are helping you to move your culture forward. It’s just that I think it is a complicated answer.
Think back to places you’ve been. What was the culture of your high school? College prep? Or like me, growing up in the deep south in a public school on the not so great side of the tracks (now a high crime area in Mobile, AL).
Where have you been inside of a certain culture that you knew how to navigate. Fraternal organization in college? Church? Current company? Even your Holiday family vacation. It has a culture.
Do you think you could change your family events? Think about any holiday get-together. Could someone come in and train you on how to have a better culture in your family events and it would actually happen?
So, what can you do about culture? The funny thing is a lot of people ask me that. Have a strategy: be disciplined to achieve it.
Build High Performance Teams: train your people to win and succeed.
Fail Forward. Studies show that the more you try and fail, the more likely you will be to succeed.
Invest in Healthy Leaders: allow nothing less than strong and vulnerable leadership.
Feedback. Feedback. More feedback. Use surveys that are proven to get your information out on the table. Teach people to ask for and receive feedback. Build MentorUP Programs to give younger team members a voice and older team members a learning lesson regardless of agreement.
Learn our Culture and Team Activators: you create Culture, we help you have the discipline to uphold positive cultures.
Here is my nickel of feedback: culture is a byproduct of your leadership.
Your leadership is the intersection of Healthy Leadership, Strategic Plans, Empowered Teams creating Wins. Winning is the best Culture of all.