Research shows that more than 70% of employees in Australia are not engaged at work, which means they’re not working to their full capacity. This is costing your business BIG TIME. The research is also clear that no-one affects an employee’s engagement as much as their immediate manager or supervisor.
Management and leadership drive culture, which drives your organisation’s performance. And your workplace culture shapes leadership too.
So, culture is the glue that holds an organisation together. It’s your organisational DNA.
In the Great Managers® Program, we say culture is everything we think, everything we say, everything we do in our workplaces. It is the expression of who we are together. Language, behaviour and relationships at work are the biggest influencers of your culture.
Culture is the force that determines how people behave when no one is looking—it strengthens a workplace and can provide immense competitive advantage. Think Google or Apple - world renowned for their culture. People line up for job opportunities with them… and for their next product release.
The wrong culture, however, can be toxic and erode the confidence and effectiveness of people. Results can still be achieved but at a much higher cost and effort.
Improving your culture can deliver huge benefits to your business:
• Financial – the better the culture and employee engagement the better the bottom line results
• You’re more likely to attract and retain talented staff
• Morale is higher – staff are more energetic & enthusiastic
• Responsiveness to change is better
• There is more co-operation and teamwork
• Productivity is higher
• Physical and emotional safety improves - there tends to be fewer workers compensation claims and less grievances
• Reduced staff turnover and absenteeism
There are 2 ways that culture forms: Accidentally or Deliberately. You can be sure that Google’s culture did not form accidentally!
Culture happens – for better or for worse. Every organisation has a culture. Proactively choosing to create your culture in a deliberate and intentional way can build a high performing workplace – a great place to work!
At Great Managers® we have developed a 6 Step System for Deliberately Creating Your Culture and one of these crucial steps is to Bring Your Organisation’s Values to Life. Values are your standards of what is acceptable and unacceptable. People connect to values. They have intrinsic value... only IF you bring them to life.
They come to life through discussions, interpretations, and your team being able to make the values meaningful and connect them to your context.
As a leader, the challenge is to “unfreeze” established behaviours in your team that aren’t in alignment with your values and create the motivation to change so that employees can learn new productive behaviours. Then “refreeze” those behaviours over time through feedback and rewards. And most importantly, never tolerate behaviour outside your values!
I am coaching our members on this 6 Step Culture Building System in detail via a Great Managers® MasterClass. If you would like VIP access to one of these sessions, which are held monthly via webinar, please contact the team at info@greatmanagers.com.
Sandra Wood
Founder & Managing Director
W: www.greatmanagers.com
E: info@greatmanagers.com
P: (02) 9501 1457
