You can improve your work environment once you know what’s working—and what’s not.
Can I confess something?
I’ve never really liked the word “culture.” To me, it sounds too much like a germ!
When we say culture, we’re really talking about the work environment and behaviors that get great outcomes.
Culture may seem like a soft concept, but it drives real results!
Research backs this up. According to Forbes, businesses with strong cultures saw a 4x increase in revenue.
So if you’re in a situation where you need to get results—and let’s be honest, who isn’t?—you’ve got to have your finger on the pulse of your organization’s culture.
As I like to say, you have to define reality if you want to improve it.
But how do you define the reality of your company’s culture?
Today, I’m going to walk you through a few tell-tale places you can look. By the time you finish reading this, you’ll know how to get a quick and accurate picture of any organization’s cultural reality.
You’ll be ready to assess exactly what needs to change in order to create a strong work environment where great things happen!
Ask Questions and Listen.
The first step whenever you’re trying to define any reality is to ask questions—and then actually listen to the answers.
That’s certainly true when it comes to assessing culture.
Before he became the CEO of Target, Brian Cornell worked for PepsiCo, running one of their European business units. He quickly realized he had a lot to learn about the unique culture, both at the organization and in a foreign country.
“I learned the importance of making fewer statements and asking more questions,” he told me. “I listened intently. And then I learned. But I really tried to make sure I asked three times as many questions as I made statements.”
If you want to understand what’s happening in your organization’s culture, take a page from Brian Cornell’s playbook and start talking to employees.
Spend time with them wherever they’re already working. Use anonymous surveys and feedback sessions to gather insights about values, communication, collaboration, and more.
And try Brian’s guideline of asking three times as many questions as you make statements. In fact, if you do nothing else on this list, do this. Asking questions and listening will help you define a culture faster and more accurately than anything else.
Observe Team Dynamics
One of the most powerful ways to see how a company’s culture operates is to watch how teams collaborate and interact.
I had the honor of talking to the legendary General Ray Odierno in 2021 a few months before he passed away. When he served as the Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army, a big part of his job was assessing individual units and their leaders.
He had to get a pulse on their dynamics quickly, so he simply walked into a briefing and watched the team interact.
“I can tell when a leader has empowered his subordinates,” he told me, “because when they’re briefing, [the team] understands exactly what’s going on and they’re not afraid to say things.”
He also saw the opposite, though, where nobody was allowed to talk except the leader and people looked disengaged and uninvolved. It was a clear signal the unit may not be operating well overall.
If you want to see what’s really happening in your organization’s culture, pay attention to how teams collaborate and interact.
Sit in meetings and take the temperature of the room. Note the tone and body language of everyone there. Are there signs of trust, open discussion, and healthy conflict resolution? Or do you see symptoms of dysfunction that might point you toward cultural issues you need to address?
Analyze Communication Channels
You can tell a lot about an organization by how information flows in it.
It’s a key place to find what’s working—and what’s not working—in any culture.
I heard one of the best examples of this recently in my conversation with Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Ford, when he joined me on my podcast.
When he took over in 2006, they were losing $17 billion dollars a year.
And it wasn’t long before he saw why.
Every week, he met with his global leadership team. Each leader provided an update from their division.
The updates were color-coded, so each topic was either green, yellow, or red. A green label indicated everything was good. Yellow meant there was a problem with a potential solution. And red was for issues without solutions.
At every meeting, for weeks, every single leader reported a “green” status for every single topic.
How could everything be green if they were losing $17 billion dollars a year?
In the existing culture, Alan told me, “You never brought an issue ever to the leader, let alone your supervisor, unless you had a solution.”
Alan knew he needed to build a culture where people could actually state the facts and feel safe laying out the issues.
Eventually, someone was brave enough to label an issue as red. When that happened, Alan stood up and started clapping.
Now, he wasn’t applauding the issue itself! But he let everyone know it was OK to communicate about it.
That free flow of information was crucial in spotting problems and iterating on new solutions, right there in the meeting.
With that level of transparency, Alan and his team pulled off one of the most dramatic turnarounds in business history, turning that $17 billion dollar loss into a $9 billion profit in just two years, all without any federal assistance.
It’s a powerful example of the significant role culture plays in a turnaround.
Consider all the places communication happens in your organization – email, Zoom, in-person meetings, by the coffee machine. Do you see transparent and effective communication between teams, departments, and leadership? Are employees encouraged to voice their opinions?
Just like Alan, you’ll find your communication channels are a rich source of insight into bigger and better results for your organization.
Dig Even Deeper with a Few More Ideas
Once you listen to employees, observe teams, and analyze communication channels, you’ll have plenty of insights into what’s working in your culture and what’s not.
But if you want to find even more opportunities to build a better work environment, here are a few other ideas:
Review Employee Turnover and Exit Interviews: Analyze employee turnover rates to identify patterns and reasons that employees leave the organization. Look for patterns that indicate underlying cultural issues.
Evaluate Performance Reviews and Recognition. Take a closer look at how your organization handles performance evaluations and employee recognition. Do they align with the values and behaviors you want to see more of?
Look at Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives: Healthy cultures are diverse cultures. They draw strength from the variety of perspectives and backgrounds that only diversity can provide. If you see a lack of inclusion, you know you’ve got a deeper issue and opportunity to explore.
Gauge Employee Development Opportunities: More than anything, people want to be developed at work. (I wrote more about that in a prior issue of this newsletter!) Take a look at whether your culture prioritizes a learning culture through training, mentorship, and career advancement opportunities.
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Some leaders mistakenly dismiss the importance of culture as a soft and squishy ideal that can’t be measured and doesn’t really matter.
But I hope you can see from this article that the opposite is true.
Your culture defines the very environment and behaviors that you need to see more of in order to get the results you want.
So take a closer look at each of these areas and define the reality of your current culture. From there, you’ll have the foundation you need to pinpoint what’s holding you back and then fix those issues.
What signals do you get from strong cultures—or from those that are struggling?