09 Jan The Levers of Culture

“When it comes to culture, the challenge we face is less of a stubborn CEO with a big idea, but it’s actually a leadership team who is misaligned. It’s the agreement in the boardroom but the disagreement in the hallway.”
—Chief Talent Officer, Fortune 100 Company

Over the last several months, we have gathered some of the top HR and culture leaders for monthly dinners Industry Nights to forge meaningful connections, share fresh perspectives, and tackle the toughest challenges shaping the future of work.

During one recent evening, we invited 30 executives to explore the levers of culture in moments of complex change. Discussion topics included:

• Leadership Modeling | Influencing leaders to be examples of Org Values 
• Cultural Activation | Scaling new behaviors and ways of working
• Managing Mergers and High Turnover | Bringing different cultures together 
• Navigating Constant Change | Building adaptability into teams
• Activating Organizational Friction | Finding the balance of healthy tension
• Human Performance | Linking wellness and business outcomes

This post distills six of the top insights from this dynamic community of leaders, along with some provocations and actions you can take back to your team. Enjoy!

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6 Levers to Shape Workplace Culture

1. Mind the gap between what we say and what we do.

Stories are born when stated culture doesn’t match your unstated culture, and those stories get carried in your organizational DNA. We heard a devastating story of a senior leader who challenged their C-suite on the gap between values and actions and was eventually pushed out over the course of two years.

2. Stop talking about culture, and start changing micro-behaviors.

Culture as a word that means everything and nothing. So, many people leaders are moving away from it entirely when advocating for their work internally. As HR leaders, it’s our job to know how work gets done best, but we don’t need to show the org how the sausage is made. Instead, put your energy into embedding best practices into the system by influencing micro-behaviors. These are small actions that don’t change the world on their own, but, if planted in enough places, will add up to desired results. Examples included things like changing how leaders ask for feedback after a presentation.

3. Start investing in the people-consequences of change.

HR must position itself to be brought in early on big changes, such as mergers and acquisitions. They can then better assess, design, and mitigate for the people-side of change. It’s a strategic role that dictates whether the ROI of a big bet will actually pay off (spoiler: most don’t because this is neglected). It requires building a clear vision for how cultures might combine and collide, deep listening to assess if it’s working, pivots when it’s not, vulnerability about what we don’t know, and experiments to test our way forward.

4. Change doesn’t happen at the top. It happens 2-3 layers down.

Change initiatives often falter by treating organizations as monolithic entities. Quite often, each department and function maintains its own subculture. This requires tailored approaches to change communication and implementation, further complicated by varying levels of change management capability among leaders. Moving beyond simple talking points, organizations must create forums for these crucial leaders to process changes themselves and develop authentic ways to cascade information. When middle managers resort to distancing themselves from changes (“This wasn’t my decision.”), it signals a breakdown in the change management process. This authenticity gap creates a ripple effect of cynicism and resistance throughout the organization.

5. Sometimes our role is to provoke tension, not minimize it.

Our desire to belong cannot stand in the way of our ability to disagree. In a moment where polarization is rampant, we need to start focusing less on our conflicting viewpoints and ideas, and focus more on how we motivate one another and how we can agree and disagree more constructively. The group labeled this as “the courage to disagree.” It’s a muscle that HR and change leaders are uniquely positioned to build.

6. Fix the baseline before building the benchmark.

Yoga rooms and juice bars aren’t what employees need most in today’s workplace. Organizations should instead be focusing (and investing) on building psychological safety into the employee experience, fostering emotional intelligence (EQ) abilities within managers, and building ongoing and measurable feedback structures throughout the org. Until these baseline human needs are optimized, business performance will be handicapped.

What resonates? What would you add?

We’re curious to hear your stories and perspectives from the field! Add them in the comments below, or message us directly.

And, if you’re interested in learning how we might support your team or organization in navigating any of the challenges above, send us a note to set up a discovery call with one of our team leads.

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This article is part of our series on HR, change and transformation. Check out past issues, and sign up for our newsletter to get future issues sent directly to your inbox.