Scaling a Positive Organizational Culture

It’s no surprise that at BrandCulture, we believe that culture matters. It’s right there in our name. That’s how deeply we believe that your culture is the key to your brand’s failure or success.

But what many people don’t realize is that culture goes beyond the way your brand is perceived in the larger marketplace of ideas, or even the statements you make about the way you believe your culture ought to be. And culture can be cultivated and developed, rather than simply morph on its own volition.

Culture is created from the ground up as well as from the top down, from Slack chats and lunch meetings, as well as purpose statements and board reviews. But according to a new study from Gallup’s Workplace division, many employees feel disconnected from their company’s culture.

These same employees often report high levels of satisfaction with the culture they share with their close associates and direct reports – but when it comes to connecting with the company writ large, those positive vibes fall flat fast. This is also true of organizations as they grow and scale. When small, cultural “glue” is commonly understood and easily maintained. But as layers and silos form, culture can become balkanized and even sprout multiple independent (and in some cases antithetical) subcultures.

Here’s what you need to know about scaling up those micro moments into a larger macro sense of culture and connection, and why many companies fail to help employees connect with their overall company culture beyond their immediate colleagues.

Building a Resilient, Enduring Organizational Culture

Let’s take a closer look at what we mean by a thriving company culture. We’ve analyzed the lessons of anthropology, behaviorism and organizational development to create a Culture Framework that uses six distinct lenses to analyze and develop corporate culture: communications, environment, leadership, rewards and recognition, structure and symbolism. Almost all organizations use communications in some form to build culture; the other five are frequently underused or overlooked, including symbolism.

As the researchers in the Gallup study eloquently noted, culture is visible that is, it is palpable and evident when you are immersed in it. We’ve all had the experience of entering a workplace and immediately picking up on the energy – positive or negative – of the people who comprise it.

This indefinable sense of identity is culture, created by an infinite string of actions, words, habits, behaviors and decisions. The Gallup findings focus on two aspects of culture we identify in the Culture Framework: symbolism and rewards and recognition.

The first piece of the puzzle is ritual/symbolism – the hallmarks of commonly shared signifiers that take on unique meaning within cultures. As anthropology tells us, rituals are critical or creating and reinforcing anchors of cultural identity. They can bond teams, and establish a shared sense of norms when it comes to values and behaviors.

Just as rituals reinforce shared behaviors, recognition reinforces company culture on an individual basis. Leaders should recognize and celebrate employees who are exemplars of their culture as a way of encouraging prosocial, and procultural, behaviors.

But leaders must step away from their desks and out of the executive bubble to see if these puzzle pieces are coming together as intended. If not, the Gallup poll is a potent testament to the dangers of the disconnection that happens when culture goes wrong.

Where Culture Goes Off Course

Unfortunately, as the researchers point out, there can be a dark side to even the most outwardly positive aspirations, and that’s certainly true when it comes to the values your company upholds.

Done wrong, a culture that values teamwork can make people feel pressured, while rigorous collaboration and consensus-building can slow down decision making. A culture that focuses on quality can deter innovation, while a customer-focused culture can mean ignoring the needs of your employees.

In all these instances, company wide culture values might be established with the best and purest of intentions. But when it comes to practicing and operationalizing those values, something falls flat. Whether due to benign neglect, or a more active practice of undermining stated values in the service of convenience or short term gain, leaders who fail to live up to their company’s stated values, or draw out their dark sides, find themselves in something of a double bind.

Employees who perceive a gap in the values their companies preach and those they practice may develop a cynical attitude like those expressed by the actively disengaged employees surveyed by Gallup, who described their company’s cultures using words like toxic, disorganized, stressful and chaotic.

Since only one in five of the employees surveyed agreed that they felt strongly connected to their organization’s culture, the issue is clearly widespread.

And yet, even within organizations where the majority of employees felt disconnected from their culture, there are pockets and teams of people who do feel a sense of connection to a greater Shared Purpose, a connection that’s reflected in their above-average performance rates. So how do we get those pockets of positive culture to scale up? The Culture Framework puts a variety of complementary interventions and touchpoints to work to build and sustain winning cultures.

From Inceptional Spark to Institutional Asset

Investing in methodically and deliberately creating a self-reinforcing positive company culture, delivers profound and immediate benefits.

The Gallup report showed that scaling up a positive company culture from a high performing niche might be the key to mitigating a trend towards increasingly dissatisfied and disillusioned employees, who self-report a feeling of mistrust not only in their own organizations, but even capitalism as a whole. Using the kernel of a winning subculture to extend its influence across the organization using the elements of the Culture Framework helps seed common understanding as well as reinforce the self-perpetuating aspects of a healthy corporate culture.

Companies need to take a closer look at the highest performing teams and individuals within their greater organizations to learn what’s working best about their culture. How do these exemplary individuals and groups interact with and interpret your top down cultural goals?

How are they either adhering to or reimaging them?

Learning these lessons from small groups that are succeeding will allow you to create a larger culture of success, which is especially critical when two companies come together, as in the world of mergers and acquisitions.

Creating rituals that reinforce culture, honoring these exemplary individuals and teams, and working towards a goal of general understanding for, and appreciation of, the values and cultural norms your company holds dear can play a major role in inspiring and reinforcing behaviors and attitudes, helping employees feel they’re on the same team.

Working with thought leaders in company culture can be a critical first step to understanding what’s working-and what isn’t-in your greater company culture, and applying those in group lessons to your organization as a whole. And while the American workforce continues to experience world historical levels of dissatisfaction, making sure employees understand what makes your organization unique and the commonly held dispositions and values your workforce shares might just be the secret to weathering – and winning – the quiet quitting storm.