Eat the breakfast of champions.
Feed your culture.
Peter Drucker got this right, culture really will eat your strategy for breakfast. Yet many of us spend hours toiling away, creating the perfect strategy, whilst allowing the ‘enabling’ culture to simply evolve.
The same way you need a good breakfast to set you up for a successful day, organisations need the right culture in place to deliver successful outcomes. The question is, what is the ‘right’ culture for you? Cultures, like organisations, services, and processes, need designing.
Below we outline our 4-step process to design and embed a culture that supports and enables the delivery of your mission.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”
(Peter Drucker)
How to design the culture you want
1. Identify your desired culture
So, what does a ‘good’ culture look like? Take a look at your vision & mission, your objectives & strategy, and your values & behaviours for operational staff & leaders. Do these reflect the culture you want for your organisation? If not, you may need to revisit these elements, see our tips below*.
2. Complete a cultural gap analysis
To determine the gap between your current culture and the culture you want, conduct workplace observations, interviews / focus groups, surveys, and analyse existing data such as sickness reports, grievances, staff turnover, etc. Maturity charts are a great way to begin quantifying the gap.
3. Analyse the causal linkages
Understand and analyse what is causing the cultural gap and behaviours observed? Identify how things link together, for example how functional teams and team specific targets might be increasing a silo culture.
4. Design actions to bridge the gap
Create a plan of actions to tackle barriers that are stopping you from reaching your desired culture. Then make the necessary changes. Use the maturity chart method to keep track of progress.
*Tips for designing your desired culture
Our Business Storytelling partner, Hilary can help you to clarify your vision & mission so that everyone inside and outside your organisation is clear on what this means.
Your objectives & strategy should come from your purpose and impact measures can help you to determine whether you’re making a difference to the reason your organisation exists.
You can identify your values & behaviours with a values mapping exercise.
If you need any help ask Ad Esse. Email hello@ad-esse.com.
