WHAT DO AWESOME CULTURES DO, THAT AVERAGE CULTURES DO NOT?
If you’re already familiar with my work on organisational culture, you will know that I place a huge emphasis on my clients’ knowing that their cultures deliver two outcomes for the business.
Firstly, culture elevates people’s performance. Secondly, culture stabilises people’s performance.
Culture elevates or lifts people’s performance through a shared sense of belonging, pride, commitment, loyalty, friendship, camaraderie, courage, collaboration, curiosity, and all other manner of human traits that cannot be mandated by a business but are provided by the combined people’s sense of identity.
Culture stabilise people’s performance through the alignment of the structural components of a culture. This includes such aspects as having a clearly defined sense of purpose, articulating a clear cultural identity, a values set, culture capabilities, enhancing behaviours and the deliberate culturing of their physical environment. In this article I will highlight five things awesome cultures do to elevate their culture, that average cultures don’t. In next month’s article I’ll repeat the process, for the five things awesome cultures do to stabilise their culture, that average cultures do not.
1. AWESOME CULTURES ELEVATE THEMSELVES BY MOVING FROM PRIDE TO PRIVILEGED.
Average cultures tend to become proud of themselves. They simply become so impressed with what they do how they do it, and even why this matters, that they inadvertently place themselves at the centre of their focus on performance.
Awesome cultures don’t do this. Awesome cultures move the vast majority of their attention from pride to privilege. In other words, even though they are delivering great work they prefer to acknowledge the privileges of being able to do this work, achieve the levels of quality they have mastered and serve an end user who can benefit from their efforts. They talk about the honour they feel to serve others. They are grateful for the contributions of other groups of people such as the board or suppliers that support them to do what they do best. They even feel privileged to have found work and colleagues to do that work with that they enjoy so much.
2. AWESOME CULTURES THEMSELVES BY CELEBRATING COURAGE MORE THAN SUCCESS.
Awesome cultures celebrate their success but not more than they celebrate courage. In an awesome culture the expression of a courageous act, question, or intent is considered to be the most praise-worthy aspect of the future that can be highlighted and celebrated. Why is this? Because every time courage is demonstrated in the culture the level of that cultures shifts up. The possibilities of that culture expand. The potential of that culture is realised. Courage stretches a culture. In awesome cultures courage is recognised, acknowledged and celebrated immediately, by anyone and everyone that witnessed or heard it. Whoops, high fives, pats on the back, thumbs up, nods of respect, handshakes and applause will spontaneously breakout in response to acts of courage.
In an average culture, success is celebrated more than courage. Success is seen as an end result and is considered to be of greater value than any contributing means. In an average culture courage is often overlooked or ignored or even considered as a marginal, or even a quirky behavioural contribution that looks so out of sorts with normal behaviour expectations that people don’t quite know what to make of it. This lack of recognition to an act of courage inadvertently and paradoxically discourages further acts of courage being demonstrated by members of the culture.
3. AWESOME CULTURES ELEVATE THEMSELVES BY APPRECIATING OTHERS.
In an average culture people wait for others to recognise them and their efforts. They bemoan the fact that their work goes unthanked or unacknowledged by their leaders, by their customers, by their shareholders. They resent this lack of acknowledgement which slowly undermines their motivation to work diligently and produce quality outputs. ‘What’s the point’ they say, when no-one notices?
In awesome cultures the people apprentice each other. They don’t wait for anyone else to notice or to have the graciousness to acknowledge the work being done or the standard being delivered. Their own acknowledgement of each other’s contributions fills them up so much it is enough. More than that it is their peers’ acknowledgement that actually means the most to them, for who better to acknowledge what you have delivered or who you have become than someone who knows just what it means to do such work and do it so well, despite the time limitations, lack of resources or absence of external approval and acknowledgement.
4. AWESOME CULTURES ELEVATE THEMSELVES BY EXPERIENCING SUCCESS IN THE HEART.
Awesome cultures approach success in a unique manner. Rather than simply celebrating success as an average culture would do, awesome cultures experience the success in the heart. In other words, they embody the success they allow it to transform themselves in their heart. Just like a software upgrade patch, an awesome culture will take the time and pause to reflect what the success has enabled them to become. An average culture on the other hand will consider what the success has enabled them to do, and thereby concentrate on just the achievement, rather than the transformation. Realising that success is felt in the heart and not the head is a significant indication of a culture’s level of maturity.
5. AWESOME CULTURES ELEVATE THEMSELVES BY LOVING THE WORK.
In an average culture people detest or resent or hate the work but need the money. In an awesome culture, people love the work and the people they do the work with and for, and they enjoy the money. Loving the work means connecting with the work. It means seeing beyond the repetition to see an opportunity to perfect. It means seeing beyond the boredom as an opportunity to focus. It means embracing the challenges and difficulties as they arise and rising above them. Testing yourselves, your skills, your creativity, your courage, your collective will and collaboration. Average cultures meet a challenge and collapse – they disintegrate and duck for cover. Awesome cultures become even more awesome because of the challenge.
Tune in to the next article where we will explore the five key stabilising aspects of culture that awesome cultures do that average cultures do not.
