Written by: William Liu, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I shared previously about ways to improve your own personal leadership. I discussed that the reason why leadership is so near and dear to me is the positive impact it has had on my life. I fully understand that I am a byproduct of the senior leaders that took the time to lead me well. While strong leadership is predicated on authenticity, trust, and honesty, that equally extends to the culture of your team and organization. It is a leader’s responsibility to shape the organizational environment around the people they lead and influence. Most importantly however, it is to have a healthy culture where everyone can thrive in.
Before we dive further into the topic of culture, I would like to offer my interpretation and definition of organizational culture. Organizational culture is the “collective way that a group of people, bonded through shared mission and values (whether formal or informal), think, act, and interact with one another to accomplish a set vision and direction.” Another way to frame it, culture is the combined behaviors that are practiced day in and day out throughout the organization. These behaviors bleed into how you communicate, collaborate, plan, and ultimately perform.
I firmly believe that leaders and managers set the cultural tone for their teams and organizations by setting the standard, communicating that standard, modeling that standard, and developing systems and processes to help their teams in enacting the spirit of the standard. As it relates to establishing healthy organization culture, I strongly feel that phrase from John Maxwell “that everything rises and falls with leadership” is so appropriate in this context. It starts from the top.
Focus on organizational health is a necessity:
Especially in this tight labor market along with the continued economic headwinds, senior leaders in a company must focus on organizational culture and its impact on organizational health. It is no longer just a competitive advantage; it is a necessity. This is paramount because at the end of the day, what is an organization without people? And with so much uncertainty permeating economically, geopolitically, and socially, focusing on this to reduce retention risk to a company as well as treating people well is a no-brainer.
Another way to look at this is, what would you do now to prevent your best people from leaving your organization later? Would taking the appropriate measures, steps, and time to reduce that risk be worth it. I know for me the question is unequivocally yes. While that may sound extreme, it really is looking at it from a risk management standpoint. Employees are feeling uncertain, potentially burn-out, and even frustrated and dissatisfied. This is then leading them to either find other jobs and resign or engage in behavior like quiet quitting. Ultimately, it is a leader’s job and responsibility to act. Whether your organization is extremely healthy or not, there are still always ways to improve.
Practical applications to start today:
So, what are ways to start? I bucketed it into 3 general phases from what has helped in my own experience in recent years through the pandemic and even post-pandemic.
1. Assessment:
Assess where your team is at using employee engagement surveys like Energage or even just create your own custom survey through Google Forms. It starts with asking the right type of questions based on what you observe going on at work and what you hear. Be curious and ask why? You could be experiencing communication challenges or seeing signs of burnout. In that case, you could ask questions such as the following:
How would you rate the communication within your team?
How would you rate the communication with other people in the organization?
Are you noticing a disconnect between what is asked by management and what is being accomplished?
How would you rate the general mood and sentiment feels like at work?
Are you feeling signs of exhaustion, stress, or internal friction bubble up?
Do you feel tasks and projects are behind?
Is there a passion emanating from what your team members do regularly?
2. Action:
From that survey, use the information collected and begin to work to address any of the concerns and issues raised from it. The important thing is to start the process of changing things for the better. It often will not be a short-term fix but starting now is a great first step. Depending on the results, it may be something to publicly acknowledge to your team and that can set the context for what is to come. Often just that willingness by a leader to bring up something hard and contextualize it for the team helps to remove ambiguity. You can also begin to engage in a bi-directional conversation with your teams in group settings. This could be doing anonymous focus groups in conjunction with your human resources team. It could even be spending time as a team monthly to get to know each other and establish that trust where you can open up more as a group. This can also be augmented by more informal practices like skip-level meetings, where a leader skips a level down to talk to more junior team members. Perhaps, even setting up a vehicle to practice appreciation and gratitude through writing a nice card, leveraging recognition tools, or setting up a slack channel to say something nice for everyone to see.
3. Involvement:
This makes this a team effort. Get your managers and others involved. For there to be genuine transformation, it cannot just be on the leader. It really is about listening to what is being communicated back to you and setting an intentional plan to create new habits, new practices, and new rituals that ultimately tie back to the mission, vision, and values of your organization. You will be surprised how significant the change can be when people understand their purpose in a company and where the company is going. In addition, ask for new ideas to try out to make the organization healthier and improve adherence to the culture. Once you get that ball rolling, it is about continuous incremental improvement. Measure where you are quarterly, use the results to continue what is working well, make changes for those parts that are not, and continue to listen.
Healthy organizational culture is a good investment:
This may sound so elementary and simple, but that is the point. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. The pandemic really accelerated the trend in this direction so there are so many resources (podcasts, books, audiobooks, etc.) that can help. If you are a manager or leader, there is no excuse not to focus on improving the health of your organizational culture. If you are not in those positions, please bring it up with your colleagues and managers. Things won’t improve overnight, and depending on the level of change needed, it may take a while to gain traction and take hold. But focusing on improving your organizational health through the culture is always a good investment. Another favorite starting point is the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team framework. I strongly recommend this book read to everyone.
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William Liu, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
William Liu is currently a higher education marketing executive at the American College of Education. He enjoys the challenge of identifying and solving mission-critical problems for organizations and has a wealth of experience tackling challenges around the world from his time in the Army as a psychological operations specialist to now. In his 20 years working in marketing, he has a strong history of transforming teams through his emphasis on organizational health and culture. His mission in life is to leverage his leadership to help solve problems in his community, at work, and in the world at large. He believes that every life he can impact professionally or personally can lead to a better world.
