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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Position your organisation's culture to attain new heights
Above the Line: How to Create a Company Culture that Engages Employees, Delights Customers and Delivers Results offers all leaders a handbook for leveraging an organisation's culture to engage staff, increase customer satisfaction and streamline business performance. A groundbreaking work, this book reveals what it takes to achieve optimum results from your organisational culture without employing the use of external consultants. This organic, in-house approach to company culture transformation saves both time and money. Step-by-step, author Michael Henderson illustrates how to create a culture in which employees and leaders delight those outside the company—customers, shareholder, employees' families, suppliers and the board of directors—and anyone else who may benefit from an association with the organisation.
The book's proven models and ideas have been tried and tested with a broad range of of high-profile international companies. Expert author, Michael Henderson, a.k.a. The Corporate Anthropologist, has more than 30 years' experience, and a proven track record of working and consulting with organisations to enhance their workplace cultures.
- Reveals how to create an organisational culture that achieves desired results
- Puts the cultural transformation process in the hands of the people directly effected
- Smashes some of the established and costly myths about culture and how to work with culture
This important resource is written for leaders, managers and supervisors at all levels and across industries.
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Seitenzahl: 372
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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ABOVE THE LINE
HOW TO CREATE A COMPANY CULTURE THAT ENGAGES EMPLOYEES, DELIGHTS CUSTOMERS AND DELIVERS RESULTS
MICHAEL HENDERSON
THE CORPORATE ANTHROPOLOGIST
First published in 2014 by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd 42 McDougall St, Milton Qld 4064
Office also in Melbourne
Typeset in 12/14.5 pt Bembo Std
© Above 200 Limited 2014
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Author:
Henderson, Michael
Title:
Above the Line: How to Create a Company Culture that Engages Employees, Delights Customers and Delivers Results / Michael Henderson.
ISBN:
9780730312505 (pbk)9780730312512 (ebook)
Notes:
Includes index.
Subjects:
Corporate culture.Corporations — Sociological aspects.Organisational behaviour.Customer services.Customer relations.Industrial relations.
Dewey Number:
302.35
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.
Cover design by Xou Creative
Disclaimer
The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and neither purports nor intends to be advice. Readers should not act on the basis of any matter in this publication without considering (and if appropriate, taking) professional advice with due regard to their own particular circumstances. The author and publisher expressly disclaim all and any liability to any person, whether a purchaser of this publication or not, in respect of anything and of the consequences of anything done or omitted to be done by any such person in reliance, whether whole or partial, upon the whole or any part of the contents of this publication.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein
Dedicated to Shar Henderson
Contents
About the author
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Why I wrote this book
Organisations and people
I value organisations
Above the line culture
The importance of culture
Culture and evolution
Supporting beliefs
A corporate anthropologist at work
Understanding culture
Part I: Understanding culture
1 What is culture?
Defining culture
A formal definition of culture
A simpler definition of culture
2 Why organisations should take culture seriously
The relationship of culture to business strategy
Culture is your organisation’s first competitor
Culture is another word for performance
The impact of the global financial crisis
Gen Y employee expectations
Why organisations should take culture seriously
3 Aligning culture and strategy
The relationship between culture and strategy
Culture and performance
Aligning culture and company strategy
Misaligned on strategy
Values alignment to strategy
Understanding values
The role of values in an organisation
Part II: Above the line culture
4 Above and below the line cultures
Discovering above and below the line cultures
Below the line culture traits
Above the line culture traits
5 Below the line stages: dead cultures
6 Below the line stages: dying cultures
Summary of culture traits at this level
7 Below the line stages: disabled cultures
Owning the culture
Understanding ownership for leaders
Disabled cultures
Characteristics of disabled cultures
8 Crossing the line: a shift in perspective
The line and productivity
9 Above the line cultures: stable
New behaviours
Summary of culture traits at the stable level
10 Above the line cultures: successful
Mission and purpose
New questions
Summary of culture traits at the successful level
11 Above the line cultures: excelling
New ways of thinking
The importance of intent
Features of excelling cultures
Summary of culture traits at the excelling level
12 A glimpse behind the curtain: consciousness and culture
Culture and consciousness
Raising consciousness
Part III: Elevating culture
13 Cultural buoyancy devices
The three cultural buoyancy devices
14 Leaders worth following
Are you a leader worth following?
Five ways to become a leader worth following
15 Work worth doing
How to create work worth doing
Connect to something bigger
Aim for measurable progress
Learning and earning merit badges
Develop a prototype
Connect to personal values
16 Cultures worth contributing to
1. Ownership
2. Decision making
3. Commitment
4. Communication
5. Celebration
Part IV: Culture planning
17 Preparing to plan
Culture plan concept
18 Culture plan 1: purpose
19 Culture plan 2: identity
20 Culture plan 3: values
The nature of values
Values and coaching
21 Culture plan 4: capability
22 Culture plan 5: behaviour
23 Culture plan 6: environment
Looking at your organisation
More aspects to consider
24 Culture plan example
Culture plan summary
Culture planning in practice
25 A final word of encouragement
26 Next steps
Bibliography
Index
Book a Free 15-Minute Phone Conversation with Author
Learn more with practical advice from our experts
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 3
Table 3.1
Chapter 24
Table 24.1
List of Illustrations
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1
the index finger points the way
Figure 3.2
thumbs up when culture aligns to strategy, thumbs down when it doesn’t
Figure 3.3
thumb pinched with finger creates a grasp ability
Figure 3.4
does culture play a role in supporting your results to move from where they currently are to where you would prefer them to be?
Figure 3.5
the tricycle model
Figure 3.6
does culture influence your strategy?
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1
above the below the line summary
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1
dead culture’s position
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1
dying culture’s position
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1
disabled culture’s position
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1
the communication process
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1
stable culture’s position
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1
successful culture’s position
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1
excelling culture’s position
Chapter 13
Figure 13.1
the three buoyancy devices
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Introduction
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About the author
Source: © Tom Roberton
Michael Henderson has had a lifelong passion for culture. Born in the United Kingdom, raised in Africa and now living in New Zealand, he has the advantage of being able to quickly understand the essence of a culture, including the values and underlying assumptions, and explain it to others. He is one of the few people working in business today who can teach organisations how to see, understand and transform culture in real terms.
Michael graduated from Auckland University in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in anthropology. He then built on this academic knowledge by travelling extensively over the next seven years, reviewing more than 70 cultures and tribes across 40 countries.
For the past 16 years Michael has applied his unique combination of anthropological skills and practical business experience to support his clients in a variety of ways to unlock the power of cultures within their organisations.
He is the best-selling author of five books on the impact and benefits of mastering company culture and human values.
Michael has been awarded the Thought Leader Mentor of the Year award by Thought Leaders Global Ltd in recognition of his innovative and ground-breaking approaches to helping his clients develop and grow their business. Michael is a partner at Thought Leaders Global and their Anthropologist in Residence.
Acknowledgements
Having already written several books on organisational culture, I had to ask myself, ‘Does the world really need another?’ Writing a book requires no small amount of effort from both the author and the publishing team, comprising the commissioning editor, the editor, design and layout artist, sales and marketing team, and the cover design artist. As an author, before you even begin to think about putting pen to paper, or finger tips to keyboards, you have to consider if you genuinely have anything worthwhile to say or share, before you ask all these people to become engaged and support your effort with all their combined experience, talents, insights and advice.
So, first, my clients deserve a huge amount of appreciation and thanks for allowing me to share my ideas with them and then for having the commitment and perseverance to apply the ideas in their organisations. This interest and take-up by clients is the best motivation an author could have as it clearly indicates the ideas are worthy and had been tested in the most demanding environment the fast-changing, cynical world of business. Ineffective ideas don’t last long when people, time, money, energy, profits, customers and shareholders are at stake.
Second, I wish to thank professional editor Meryl Potter who had the thankless task of translating the ideas in my original manuscript into written English. Unfortunately I think faster than I can type, and so my brain is often a sentence or paragraph ahead of my typing fingers. This resulted in regular doses of chaos appearing in the pages of the first draft. Meryl bravely ventured into my written jungle and, with editing machete and torch in hand, slashed the unnecessary away and illuminated the bits worth highlighting. This book is at least twice if not three times better than the original draft due to Meryl’s input. If you enjoy this book and learn from it you probably have Meryl to thank for it.
I also wish to thank the team at Wiley, special thanks to the inspiring and encouraging Commissioning Editor Kristen Hammond, Senior Editor Alice Berry, Publicist Katie Elliott, Publishing Coordinator Keira de Hoog and Marketing Manager Peter Walmsley.
Writing a book takes time and energy and in my case that has only been possible because I have the amazing support of my family around me. Their perfectly timed cups of tea, delivered with a gentle non-interruptive placing of an encouraging hand on my shoulder, or the quiet whisper of ‘dinner’s ready’ delivered as a smiling face appears around the edge of my study door, has enabled me to focus on writing.
Although my name appears on the front cover of this book, many people have contributed to the thinking and ideas contained in this book — people such as my customers, Thought Leader colleague and dear friend Matt Church, have offered continuous mentoring and encouragement over many years, all of which has significantly contributed to the development of my thinking and ideas. Thanks to my dear friend and colleague at Cultures At Work, Dougal Thompson, for his research, common sense advice and support and friendship.
I wish also to thank the many cynics and sceptics to my work that I have met along the way. Having my work scoffed at and belittled as being ‘the soft stuff’ is a useful experience to go through as it has taught me to think about the types of barriers to understanding that have to be overcome before a book like this can stand any chance of moving large numbers of people — in short they have helped me understand how to help even the most cynical to take culture seriously.
Finally I wish to thank my wife, Shar. If there is anyone that supports me to stay above the line it is Shar. Thank you for the thousands of conversations we have had together discussing every aspect of this work and this book. Your spirit, generosity, love and compassion for people is woven through every line written in this book. I love you.
Introduction
This book, as you have no doubt grasped from the front and back covers, is about creating a powerful and high-performance organisational culture. Culture is something I not only find fascinating, but also believe to be one of humanity’s best inventions. Without culture, humanity would have failed to advance into civilisation. Culture is, for most of the billions of people on this planet, such a natural phenomenon that they could not imagine life without it. Culture offers humans a variety of powerful and inspiring enrichments to their daily lives. It is the source of human beings’ sense of belonging, connection, belief, identity, courage, collaboration, empathy, art, music, sport, recreation, charity, sharing, celebration and commiserations, traditions, symbols, rituals, myths and heroism, and, of course, stories. Culture is both the overarching framework of human connection with others and the underlying distinction of separateness from the surrounding environment. Given the pervasive and all-encompassing presence of culture in people’s lives, it surprises me how few companies really understand and work with their cultures. Why is this? Well, as you read through this book, you will discover many reasons for that.
Why I wrote this book
One reason is worth addressing immediately, as it explains the primary reason why I have written this book. I believe that, on the whole, organisations don’t like people! That sounds like a harsh assessment, doesn’t it? Maybe even a ridiculous statement as, of course, organisations are designed to serve people, aren’t they? People such as customers, shareholders — even employees. So is my assessment fair? Is it even true? I believe so and I shall explain why shortly. But for now let me explain why this observation has led to me writing a book about organisational culture.
When we don’t like something we seek to control it, or at least our relationship with it. We seek to limit our exposure to the things we do not like. Imagine you don’t like horror movies. You will seek to ensure you have limited or no exposure to horror movies. You might even avert your eyes when a trailer for a horror movie appears on your TV or cinema screen. Because, in my opinion, organisations do not actually like people, this results in them seeking to control people through the use of systems, processes, policies and the like. In seeking to control people, organisations often put a stranglehold on the culture and in doing so lose the most powerful and productive offering people can provide. I have written this book to remind organisations and leaders of the critical role people and culture play in contributing to an organisation’s performance.
Organisations and people
So, as promised, let me explain what I mean by the statement ‘Organisations don’t like people’.
My impression is that many organisations (even those that claim to be in service of people) would prefer to operate without having to employ people, or serve them if they could, as long as they could still make money. Organisations, you see, are designed to be organised, and as a result prefer things to run smoothly, reliably, efficiently, productively, predictably, logically, repetitively, mechanically and rationally. Organisations use a variety of systems, processes and methods to ensure they do.
People, on the other hand, tend to vary considerably from these desired organisational traits. People are often paradoxical — saying one thing but doing another. Changeable: they were committed, but now they’re not so sure. People are emotional: their moods can and do influence their behaviour and decisions. People prefer stories to numbers: they will often ask what story the numbers are telling them in order to put the numbers into perspective. People are philosophical and even metaphysical: they put as much emphasis on and interest in what is unseen or not measurable. They believe in luck, synchronicity, fate, karma, destiny — or they don’t, but the people working alongside them, and across the counter, do.
From an organisation’s perspective, human beings are messy. They are excitable or unsure, courageous or afraid, passionate or bored — in short, they are human.
To cope with the nature of people being human, organisations have developed a series of mechanisms to attempt to control the organic nature of people. They have implemented such things as human resource systems, people measurement, management roles, contracts and conditions, survey profiling, training and disciplinary procedures. All of which tend to achieve two distinct outcomes. First, they signal to employees that the organisation doesn’t really trust them. Second, they signal in a subtle manner that the organisation doesn’t really like them.
I’m not sure when organisations reached the point where they began to see and plan for people being a nuisance, but at some stage it happened. Is every organisation like this? No, of course not. Is your organisation like this? Hopefully not. But just to be sure, maybe you should check, as in my experience more organisations are like this than not. Next time you interact with an organisation, perhaps at your local supermarket, bank, petrol station, tax department, hospital, courier service or restaurant, pay attention to the extent to which these organisations seem to appreciate, enjoy or even celebrate people. I hope, I really hope, that some of them do. I expect, however, that many will not. Organisations don’t mean to be this way. They didn’t set out to not like people. ‘We don’t like people’ are not words you will find written into their vision or mission statement, or in any expression of their values. In fact, I’m sure you will find quite the opposite. But, in reality, in the act of delivering their service or employing their staff, or managing their business, somehow, the enjoyment and celebration of people is quickly forgotten under the demand for efficiency, effectiveness, timeliness and profits.
If you can begin to sense that not only is there some truth in this idea that organisations don’t like people, you also will realise that this is somewhat ironic, given that organisations are fundamentally here to employ and serve people. There are, of course, organisations that take people to their hearts and place them at the centre of their endeavours. Many of these organisations fully commit to working with their people to ensure the workplace is a positive experience, which in turn enables employees to be at their best for the customer’s sake. Often, however, despite the organisation’s best attempts to improve the workplace experience for employees, their approaches inadvertently work against getting the very outcome they are committed to achieving.
I value organisations
It might be worthwhile pausing at this stage to point out that I am not (as it may appear) anti-organisation. I’m just tired of seeing them failing to integrate effectively with human beings, whether as employees, customers, shareholders or stakeholders. I am, in fact, very pro-organisation, and I have written this book to support them, to more effectively inspire employees to create and sustain a culture that provides the organisation with increased performance. In the 21st century, it is the commercially oriented organisations with empowered and high-performance cultures that will so often have the necessary influence, capital, power and opportunity to serve people and really make a difference. When was the last time you saw a politician anywhere in the world make a bold, decisive, significant and positive change to the status quo? I can count them on one hand.
This need to reconnect with the idea that people matter to organisations is a key theme in this book. When you start with the premise that people matter, then you quickly begin to see that culture also matters. This is because, whenever a group of people spend regular time together in a location, a culture will emerge. This does not have to be planned, as it will happen organically. However, when a culture is deliberately developed and nurtured, it becomes stronger and more sustainable. If this strength of the culture is aligned to a business strategy then you can expect very high levels of performance to follow.
This book offers a tried and tested way of connecting the people in your organisation with its culture, which in turn can be aligned to your business strategy to generate maximum benefit for all.
Above the line culture
An above the line culture is one in which the people in the culture (employees and leaders) create for themselves a positive and inspiring environment. An above the line culture also provides delight to customers, shareholders, employees’ families, suppliers, and the board of directors.
A below the line culture is a culture that doesn’t work. By ‘doesn’t work’ I mean the culture is ineffective, toxic or even dead. Any of these conditions lead to people suffering. Cultures are all about people (by the people, for the people), and not delivering optimum experiences for people renders them not working or below the line. By the time we are through this book we shall of course come to understand above and below the line in depth, but for now just think of above the line as a positive, productive experience for people and below the line as not!
This book offers a workable, fun and engaging approach to enhancing organisational culture. The approach delivers a very practical, easy-to-implement method for inspiring a high-performance culture that engages employees and delights customers.
The approach to working with culture presented here is quite different from the approaches typically adopted by organisations. My approach places a significant emphasis on developing an understanding of what culture actually is, before launching into doing anything about changing it.
This book will give you the tools to move far beyond the common platitudes, such as ‘Culture is the way we do things around here’ or ‘Our values are our culture’. Or such limited descriptions of culture as, ‘We have a collaborative culture’. Too many organisations do not understand the nature and structure of culture and end up investing time, money, energy and people in attempts to change, grow or replicate the culture. This seems a little redundant when we consider how a company can expect to achieve great results, working with something as complex as culture, if it does not first understand what culture actually is. Yet the overwhelming majority of organisations that attempt to work on their culture do not actually understand culture in its full capacity and influence.
The importance of culture
When clients ask for my suggestions on what to work on or improve their culture my first rule is ‘First, understand culture and its importance’, and only then can you plan accordingly. Of course, many businesspeople do not know much about culture because they do not understand its significance, or they falsely assume they have got by just fine until now without needing to know too much about it. In fact, some even still query if culture has any real role to play in the performance of their organisation, and often assume that the current focus and intense activity being placed on creating powerful workplace cultures is just a passing trend.
So the question is whether all this emphasis on culture is just the latest business trend. I always answer this question with the same answer. ‘No, business is just the latest cultural trend.’
People seem to forget that human beings have been embracing culture as a way of working and living together far longer than business has existed. Culture is ancient. Business is in its infancy by comparison — especially modern business and specifically the model of the corporation, which was invented when, in 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a royal charter to England’s East India Company. The point being that if you truly wish to master running a successful business, it would pay (often handsomely) to understand the very DNA of what enables people to function together collectively and effectively — which is to understand the ancient human invention that is the very foundation of every organisation: culture.
Expecting and encouraging a group of human beings to work together over a long time means a culture will emerge, and it will be required to harness the collective belief and energy of the group. In fact, the organisation, with its strategy, structure, shareholders and marketplace, will not be able to stop a culture forming, regardless of how the business is performing. Why is this? Human beings are wired for culture. In his fascinating book Wired for Culture: The Natural History of Human Cooperation, Mark Pagel, head of the evolution laboratory at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading in England, describes just how powerfully connected humans are to culture. Pagel suggests that, as a species, we invented culture for ourselves some 160 000 to 200 000 years ago. He describes how humans acquired the ability to copy and imitate, even improve upon, behaviours and actions from one generation to the next, and says that this ability gave us a significant evolutionary advantage over other species. The various elements of culture could be transferred, in much the same way that genes enable physical characteristics to be transferred from one generation to the next. However, the elements of culture, such as beliefs, traditions, techniques, technology, art, songs, language and traditions, could all be adapted and improved upon, in a way genes could not.
Culture and evolution
This ability to transfer units of culture, often called memes, extended the usual system of inheritance from relying exclusively on genes. Pagel says this ability changed everything.
Our cultural heritage is something we take for granted today, but its invention forever altered the course of evolution and our world. This is because knowledge could accumulate as good ideas were retained, combined, and improved upon, and others were discarded.
Pagel suggests that this process of culturing also enabled us to adopt faster:
And, being able to jump from mind to mind granted the elements of culture a pace of change that stood in relation to our genetical evolution something like an animal’s behaviour does to a more leisurely movement of a plant.
Pagel explains that culture quickly became the dominant source of our evolutionary progress, as we could learn to adapt during the course of a single lifetime and escape the restrictions we may have encountered from the biological inheritance of our genes. Consequently, culture ‘outstripped our genes in providing solutions to the problems of our existence’. Pagel suggests this ability to escape from the inherited restrictions of our genes is a significant advantage in terms not only of survival but also adaptation and prosperity. As humans, we are the only species that can acquire and learn the rules of survival through daily life and knowledge transferred from our ancestors, rather than simply through the genes they passed on to us. This knowledge could be extended and added to significantly in just one lifetime, meaning that over three generations a knowledge base could be enhanced significantly, whereas the genetic code remained the same.
What all this means is that culture became a human strategy for survival. No other species has this social adaptation system to rely on for adaptation. Organisations need to understand this inbuilt condition for humans to be wired for culture. In my experience, not many do. It is important because it explains why humans will always rely on culture to create a sense of belonging through which to nurture, grow and protect themselves. A business strategy, by comparison, lacks this emotive, hardwired connection for most employees. As culture is hardwired, you may have begun to realise that, for a strategy to be initiated and then executed, it must first be accepted by the very culture from which it is hoping to draw its energy and activity. People are wired for culture, but will debate and renege on a strategy based on their culture’s immune system.
A culture is built upon a set of values and beliefs. Any business strategy that is at odds with these values and beliefs is doomed, as culture will always prove to be a more powerful attraction for people, because it is hardwired. Strategy, by comparison, is soft wired. People will go along with a strategy only as long as it serves their cultural purposes. People also create a culture around a sense of identity, which a strategy may offer but too often does not. If the strategy is at odds with how the people see themselves, the strategy will again be rejected by the culture. Sometimes this rejection is formal and therefore easily recognised by the senior leaders of the organisation, but more often the business strategy is rejected informally, meaning it is subtly sabotaged over a period of weeks, months and years, through a variety of mechanisms including:
staff withholding ideas and suggestions
high turnover in staff
lack of commitment
lack of collaboration
lack of application
increased absenteeism
breakdown in communication
punctuality issues
quality issues.
All these, and more, are symptoms of a culture rejecting its organisation’s business strategy or leadership. Because culture is hardwired and influential, it is critical that organisations learn to master the ability to inspire a culture that will align with their business objectives.
This book is the result of a lifetime’s work of studying culture and understanding what really works and what does not when it comes to developing a workplace culture. In particular, I will outline how to understand culture, why it is so important to do so, and finally what to do in terms of planning your organisation’s culture. This book offers a change of direction for those leaders and organisations still relying on external providers of culture climate and engagement surveys, and in doing so puts the understanding of culture back into its rightful hands: those of the people who actually work in the culture.
This belief that culture belongs to the people who work in it is one of many I have come to subscribe to as I have observed the difference between above the line and below the line cultures. Although I describe it as a belief, I do not mean that I am making this opinion up, but rather that I am convinced of it from decades of field work and observation. There are many more beliefs that I subscribe to or have formulated in this manner as I created the above the line culture approach. You might even say I have become hardwired around these beliefs, and so it is only fair that I share them with you and make them as transparent as possible before you read further. Many providers of culture methodologies do not openly declare their underlying beliefs and assumptions to their customers, for fear of being rejected on the grounds of mismatching beliefs. This has always struck me as somewhat ironic, as beliefs and perspectives form a powerful and influential aspect of all cultures. These beliefs, when exposed and understood, hopefully explain why the author or designer of a culture process has chosen and favours that particular approach. This can be very insightful, as it enables leaders in organisations to go beyond simply the rational and logical efficiency offered by the culture approach or survey and begin to understand the emotive drivers hidden beneath the approach. Such beliefs are the hidden reason that the developers of the approach were motivated to design their approach the way they have. Common examples of such beliefs might include:
applying a theory is preferred to observing reality, because a theory is supposed to be more objective in its approach, especially if offered from a supplier with an academic background
taking a religious persuasion approach: favouring a religious or spiritual approach to viewing how organisations should operate
taking a psychological perspective: what works for individuals applies to groups and culture
relying on cultural or geographical background, such as a northern hemisphere, or Western or Eastern perspective
using a metaphorical reference: think of the company as a machine, or tribe, or brain or military unit.
I wish to be as transparent as possible in what I am offering in this approach, and explain why I feel motivated to do so. To achieve this, I have listed the beliefs underpinning my work.
Supporting beliefs
The underlying beliefs inspiring this book and my approach to culture include the following.
Culture underscores every human endeavour and activity in the workplace.
Culture is one of the best inventions of human beings, but not enough organisations understand this or tap into the immense power a culture offers.
Every organisation has a culture, whether it knows it or not. The trick is to know it and act accordingly.
Culture has more influence on an organisation’s performance than strategy. Strategy is important, but aligning the culture to the strategy is even more important.
Business strategy without an aligned culture is powerless.
Company culture without a business strategy meanders.
Culture is dynamic not static.
Culture belongs to people, not the organisation.
The size and location of an organisation affects its culture.
Deliberate conscious culturing is powerful. The word ‘culturing’ implies the dedicated ongoing focus on the wellbeing and growth of a culture.
People’s personal values are more important than organisational values.
Work is a privilege.
You cannot work with and influence culture if you do not understand it.
Staff engagement surveys do not measure cultures.
People are what make change possible — or impossible.
People want to do well at work. Most people, in my experience, wish to do good, be good and serve others. Let’s back these people with our culture systems and processes, rather than have the minority of people who are not aligned in this manner dictate our culture and systems.
People’s personal values are more important for an organisation’s performance than the company values. An alignment of both is best.
Values can and do change. Even company values can become outdated.
Leadership is not a title. Ironically, only bad leaders think leadership is a title.
Too many leaders are under-trained and promoted into roles they are not ready for or not supported enough to develop the necessary skills to cope with something as complex as a high-performance culture.
When done well (and to quote Michael Port), business is a love story disguised as a strategy.
Culture is available in two forms: above and below the line.
These beliefs of mine about culture also seem to be present in most above the line cultures. Not all occur in every culture, but enough of them to warrant your being aware of them in case they can serve you or your organisation. There are many more beliefs, both mine and those embodied within above the line cultures, discussed throughout the book, which I openly declare and even highlight to ensure you do not miss them. However, I suggest you evaluate their worth in the context of your interest in your own culture.
Finally, I am aware you may not have come across a business book written by a corporate anthropologist before. Although they are numerous in North America and Europe, corporate anthropologists are a rare breed in Australasia, and so I have decided to provide the following short introduction to how, as a corporate anthropologist, I approach my work of supporting organisations to create powerful workplace cultures.
A corporate anthropologist at work
I have relied predominantly on the anthropology practices of participant observation and ethnography as the key means to uncovering insights about culture. I then take these insights and learning, and share them with organisations.
If you are new to these terms let me quickly explain what they are and how they work.
Participant observation
As the words themselves describe, participant observation is a process of working with people and, while doing so, simultaneously observing what people are doing, how they go about doing what they are doing, and paying deep attention to the language they use to communicate with one another and customers. This process enables an anthropologist to begin to explore, understand and gain familiarity with the observable level of culture. Gaining familiarity can require the anthropologist to ask a lot of questions of the people that they themselves might easily find simplistic or obvious or even stupid. For example, much of the jargon that organisations use, although very familiar to people within the organisation or profession, can be completely alien to someone outside of the company or profession. An example of a word that needed to be explained to me is ‘ward’. I heard this word being referred to regularly when I was studying the culture of a business in the insurance industry. I asked them what it meant. It turns out that a previous employee, who had been negligent in filing a claim for a customer, had ended up causing a considerable amount of unnecessary heartache for the client and expense for the company. The individual’s surname was Ward. So whenever people were referring to a project or case that, if not treated with a lot of attention to detail, could become a problem out of proportion to the actual claim size, the situation was labelled a ‘ward’!
Participant observation requires the anthropologist to pay attention to artefacts and symbols and identify the underlying values and beliefs. These symbols can include a wide range of items including:
company values
safety charts and instructions on the wall
motivational poster or messages
directional information
personal pictures, quotes, cartoons or jokes
vision, mission or project statements
warnings and reminders
menus or recipes for procedures
tools
furniture
awards
team names or colours
art
music
charts
technology
manuals
reference books
catalogues.
Ethnographic field work
Ethnography is just a fancy word for capturing a people’s story. ‘Ethno’ is from the root word in Greek for race, while the word ‘graphic’ is a picture or telling of a tale, as in autobiographic. Ethnographic field work involves an anthropologist visiting the culture in person (rather than reading about it in a book or on a website), and engaging in a variety of activities and conversations in an attempt to understand the deeper meaning and significance of the culture. The techniques used in this process can include:
observation
informal conversations
formal question and answer sessions
interviews and reviews of individuals’ accounts of their life and work in the culture
gathering data or statistical data
mapping a physical environment
surveys
photography and videotaping to capture images of symbols, work and ceremonies.
Often the anthropologist will work with a person or small group of people from within the culture to act as interpreters, not just of language if the anthropologist is unfamiliar with the jargon or terms used, but also to delve into the deeper significance of the observations and conversations, rituals or behaviours they witness.
Anyway, enough about anthropology, let’s get on with the target of anthropology, which is of course to understand culture.
Understanding culture
To help you understand the various cultures that are described in this book, I have deliberately tried to avoid offering too many case study examples or ‘benchmarks’, as is common in most business books providing models of excellence. This is for two important reasons.
First, you can’t benchmark culture! You might like to think of culture as operating more as a verb than a noun. Culture is an active process of being and doing that occurs in a very organic and dynamic manner. One not easily replicated. Culture comprises as much, some would say more, of the intangible as the tangible. So when it comes to culture, to offer a sample benchmark is a little misleading and offers unfair expectations for anyone simply trying to copy ‘what they did’ and expect the same results.
Culture is not a formulaic process or business system that has embedded within it a machine-like conformity and consistency. Every culture is unique! Failure to understand this point can lead to organisations spending huge amounts of time, money and effort trying to copy another culture when in reality this simply is not possible. Nor should you try to copy a culture. One of the most important keys to really powerful cultures is the fact that they are unique!
I recall many years ago working with a fast food business that had franchises across Australasia, and the CEO had asked me to replicate the culture from the best restaurants in the chain in the vast majority of the others, which were lagging. It took some time to explain to the CEO that culture isn’t created in the same way that the organisation’s famous flagship burgers were. I explained to him that, unlike the carefully designed recipe for their delicious burgers, the very careful construction and layout of each ingredient in the burger — which were placed meticulously to ensure the customer, no matter where they bit into the burger, accessed enough of the core ingredients to experience a consistent taste as they devoured the burger — did not apply to culture. For a moment or two he looked at me and frowned as if baffled by how this could possibly be so. After a while a glimmer of insight swept across his face and he said hesitantly, ‘Because the people in the culture of each restaurant are all different, right?’ I nodded in response and, as this realisation sunk deeper into his understanding, he smiled and threw his hands up in a gesture of genuine surprise and surrender, and said, ‘Okay, Mr Anthropologist, show me what we have to do.’
The second reason for believing you are wasting your time benchmarking your culture against others is that cultures change. I’ve been amused that some books that were considered to be the epitome of best practice at the time of publication, or that provided world-class examples of organisations who had got things right (Good to Great by Jim Collins and In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters come to mind) were subsequently criticised by the media for being false prophets, as many of the organisations held up as shining examples of excellence are in fact no longer in business. They have either been taken over as part of a merger or acquisition, been wound up or gone bankrupt. The argument by the book critics is that the authors got things wrong, that their theories were flawed or that their ideas were just the latest trend.
