Culture matters by Jo Webb
We know culture really matters. In fact, its critical to long-term sustained business growth…
Let’s be clear, every business has a culture whether intended or not, but a performance-enhancing culture is a particular type of culture.
We know businesses are no longer judged on their ability to maintain a positive relationship with employees, customers, and the wider community and society. McKinsey found that companies with performance-enhancing cultures experience a whopping 200% higher shareholder return than those with poor cultures. But, despite the amount of airtime ‘culture’ and ‘performance’ get - not to mention the amount of money spent on culture change - very few companies actually succeed in creating a performance-enhancing culture. Why is this?
The wrong approach to culture
This is sadly, all too common. There are two broad categories:
1. A focus on keeping people happy
The thinking is that if people are kept happy, they’ll be loyal, motivated, engaged and high performing. It’s all about table tennis tables, beers on a Friday afternoon and other perks. Often that’s dialled up before engagement surveys, so the scores show that the business is a ‘great place to work’ and might even get into the Sunday Times top 10. But, there’s zero evidence to show that this approach leads to high performing people or sustained business growth.
2. A focus on results only
Organisations set stretch targets for people, incentivise them to achieve those targets, allowing them to do whatever’s needed to deliver against the targets – all in the belief that it will lead to success and business growth. The evidence shows that while some businesses experience some short-term success, it quickly leads to the development of toxic behaviours and long-term growth is never sustained.
The right approach to culture
The only culture that will lead to long-term, sustained business growth is a people-first, high-performance culture.
In this type of culture, performance and people are prioritised. Collectively, people have a clear understanding of why the business exists, and why that matters. They understand the requirements of their specific role and their team’s mission, as well as how their work helps the business achieve its goals and why that’s important.
Below are some further signs of this type of culture:
The right people are in the right roles and there’s clarity on what’s expected from them in terms of attitude, mindset and behaviours
People are given responsibility to deliver against expectations, and there’s a focus and passion for the ‘process’ rather than just the outcome or results. That means people are rewarded as much for their performance (the ‘process’) as for the results they deliver
People are supported and enabled to perform at their best, they’re not simply kept happy!
People feel valued for their ability, input and contribution to the business and teams they’re in
The collective mindset is on continually getting better as individuals and as a team – and that drives behaviour and communication. Everyone understands and buys into this, and the philosophy is central to who gets hired, how the leaders lead and how the business operates at every level
People who don’t measure up or who behave in a way that threatens the culture are swiftly moved on
Leaders are the glue that hold everything together. They are 100% focused on long-term commitment to culture as the key strategy for driving better business performance and growth. They own, nurture and take responsibility for the culture – so anyone with ‘leader’ in their title understands what leading people to perform means, and they have the right skills, mindset and attitude to actually do it.
How do we know a people-first, high-performance culture is the right one?
Well, it’s underpinned by some consistent and robust science and research, as well as a whole load of evidence from high performing teams and businesses across a variety of performance arenas. Think Netflix, Timpsons, The All Blacks…
The good news is that it’s not complex, conceptually or practically, to develop a people-first, high-performance culture. The slightly less good news, is that it’s easy to get wrong. The hard bit is getting it to truly live and breathe in your business. It takes time, energy, commitment and practice from everyone, particularly the leaders. The unavoidable truth is that if your business is serious about achieving sustained growth, you need to spend time developing the right culture. There’s no shortcut or easy option.
Ask yourself these three questions to see where your business stands:
Is your business more interested in keeping people happy with ‘perks’ than supporting them to perform better and fulfil their potential?
Is your business only interested in talking about profit and financial results, or are there also lots of conversations about how results are achieved?
Are people and teams rewarded for results only, or are they also rewarded for how they got the results?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may just be taking the wrong approach to culture. That means you’re likely to be letting your people, customers and shareholders down. Ultimately, you’re putting the brakes on your company’s potential growth. Do you really want to take that risk?
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My name is Jo. I'm a Leadership & Culture Coach, and Founder of Culture Co, with +25 years working with global, high-growth SMEs to create thriving workplace cultures. I've also seen first-hand how culture is the biggest driver of business performance, after spending decades learning what people really want from work, and what a great culture looks and feels like.
Thanks for reading – For coaching, pls reach out via linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jowebb