The Freedom To Fall

Your company’s culture drives everything within your business. It represents:

• What your people believe in which drives behaviour;
• A commitment to standards, service levels and performance, which is what your customers experience;
• The reason why your customers remain loyal; and
• It drives financial performance and growth.

Business behaviour equals business culture.

We have seen many examples of a bad culture and behaviour exposed in the Australian Royal Commission into misconduct in the banking and financial services industry. Examples include remuneration structures driving employees and management to prioritise sales over good customer outcomes.

Aspects of Culture

An important aspect of culture is understanding what it is and how it is created, as only then can you take steps to improve it. Culture is a result of factors which uniquely align to create a dominant feeling, it is not an action that you can take. It is more than a mission statement, it is primarily around the discipline a business has to maintain consistent actions from the top down. A collective accountability……. but towards what?

In considering this:

• Can you or your people quantify what your culture is, let alone what makes a good culture?
• Do your people own their behaviour and the results?
• Are you and your people aware of what it is to be aligned to and honouring of the values of your business?
• What is it that your customers are experiencing? How effective is your culture?

MAYBE YOU ARE STUCK SOMEWHERE BETWEEN………..

• Wanting your people confident, without undermining your leadership?
• Wanting your people to innovate, without destabilising your strategy?
• Wanting them to be forthright, but constructive?

Possibly the most important question is:

• What happens when someone in the business ‘falls’?

Jason Reynolds, a member of The Quantum Movement, a company that develops organisational architecture across industries based on uncompromising personal governance, highlighted this in recent discussions. “It is inevitable that someone will fall. It is what happens next that determines the culture of an organisation. The stark reality is that cultures rarely have a clear and simple strategy to move through this. Growth or failure happens rapidly on the other side of the fall. Falling will only remain a problem if neither the individual or the business looks to learn from the experience. A good culture is a habit that looks to equally support learning and success.”

What To Do?

A strong energetic structure must be established, creating leaders at all levels to hold the business accountable for its conduct. It cannot be about ‘tick the box’ compliance, as it has been for far too long.

In accordance with The Quantum Movement philosophy, a good culture is about developing your people to be responsible for their personal governance, empowering them to:

• embrace their authenticity; through absolute responsibility
• recognise the strength of their own view and voice;
• speak their truth; and to equally hear the truth;
• make a difference, not only in your business, but as a habit, in their own lives when they leave work each day.

Empowering your people in this way will give you the comfort of knowing that the right thing is being done by your business and customers.

No one should wait for a crisis to begin to work on their culture. This is an old way of thinking when any change is only justifiable after there is a problem and an identified cost. Further justifying our ability as problem solvers and in doing so, elevating our own importance. This is short term thinking.

We owe it to ourselves, to our people and to our customers to elevate to be the best we can be. Always trying to do the right thing because it is better, not simply to create and respond to actions that are focused on driving financial performance.

Cultures do not change overnight. You need to invest in your business and people to build the momentum of change, incrementally and continuously. If you do, your business will benefit as will your people.

Remember, culture is a feeling. It is not a ‘workshopped’ directive.