Culture and engagement

Building your culture involves two elements, both in tune with your organisation’s purpose and direction

Building your culture involves two elements, both in tune with your organisation’s purpose and direction:

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• How your organisation works: your systems, protocols and processes.

• How your people behave: their motives, values and relationships.

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How leaders behave and role model what’s important is critical. Key questions are:

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• Is there a gap between the ground truth — what actually happens on the front line, and the official truth — what the official culture is supposed to be?

• Are values lived every day or ignored when problems arise or deadlines need to be met?

• How engaged are people? And if they’re not, why not? What engagement trends are visible?

• How does work actually get done? Is collaboration alive and well or are silos ruling the roost?

• Is your organisation agile, partly agile or superficially agile?

• How does the organisation react to failure? Is it embraced as learning or punished? Is innovation encouraged?

• What do employees experience? How is their performance measured and how are they rewarded?

• How does communication flow through your organisation?

• Where do customers fit in? At the top of the tree or the bottom of the pit?

Partner with us to examine your culture and engagement and then develop a strategy to enhance or change your culture and improve engagement.

Purpose and vision - your why

Knowing why your organisation and your team exist is a must. Your people are more likely to have an emotional connection when they know your why. That emotional connection helps people think and act in line with your purpose and vision.

Work through the difference you want to make and why it’s important. Then your people and team members have a reason to want to come to work and your customers a reason to be loyal to you.

Values

Your values match your purpose. They need to reflect people’s reality and experiences. They also need to be simple  and clear. Foundation values are those most people will agree with, such as honesty and integrity. Signature values define your organisation or team specifically. Action values define behaviours.

We can help you work through a ground-up values exercise or refresh.

Systems, protocols, and processes

Over the years, different approaches have offered the way forward to improve systems, protocols and processes. One universal problem they’ve shared is a disconnect from how people really get the job done. The starting point for change and improvement is the outcome you’re trying to achieve. Then, people, technology and logistics are all relevant. 

Lean has a role to play here. But whatever approach you take, it needs to reflect the real world, be workable and make the difference you want it to make.

Relationships and collaboration

We can map relationships and assess the extent of collaboration. Your informal network - how you actually get work done - may be alive and productive. On the other hand trust may be low within teams or between teams.

Agile

You may already be taking an agile approach. Is it working, or has it  fallen into a pattern of rigidity and constraint? Like any approach, it may need a reboot.

Innovation and failure

How you react to both sends powerful messages. Innovation may be mainstream or worked on, on the side.

Employee experience

Performance measurement, rewards and flexibility are all part of the mix.

Customer focus

A clear mindset, protocols, standards and procedures are at the heart of your attitude to customers.

Engagement

Two key ingredients form the foundation of engagement: psychological safety and having a voice. 

Analysis 

Formal and informal measures complement each other.

Strategy development and implementation 

To be successful, improving engagement needs a whole organisation approach, with leaders at the fore.

Internal communication 

Getting internal communication right adds to employee engagement. And getting it right means creating communication channels that work in every direction within the organisation. 

Our latest thinking on culture and engagement