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    You are here Home » culture

    Five Degrees of Workplace Culture

    Last updated on Oct 29, 2015 by Dan McCarthy · This post may contain affiliate links

    Guest post from S. Chris Edmonds:
     
    How healthy is your workplace culture? Is yours a safe, inspiring,
    productive culture or far from it?

    I recently spoke to leaders in two different organizations about the
    difficult dynamics in their work environment. Both organizations are
    experiencing “senior leaders behaving badly."

    The behavior is disruptive, aggressive, and exhausting for anyone that
    interacts with these leaders. Tantrums happen frequently. These leaders’ teams
    demonstrate inconsistent performance and poor service (to internal and external
    customers). When challenged to improve results or service, these leaders pop a
    cork, even cussing up a storm, which diverts attention from the core
    performance and service issues.

    These dynamics cause stress, frustration, and heartache. Worse, the bad
    behavior by these leaders has been tolerated by the top leaders of their
    organizations - so it continues, unabated.

    If leaders want a high performing, values-aligned culture, they must be
    intentional about the quality of their workplace culture. They must design
    their desired culture through an organizational constitution, which specifies their team or
    department or company’s present day purpose, values and behaviors, strategies,
    and goals. Once defined, leaders must align all plans, decisions, and
    actions to that constitution.

    Crafting an organizational constitution then aligning practices to that
    constitution takes time, energy, and attention on the part of leaders, every
    day. Leaders must demonstrate their values and behaviors in every interaction -
    and coach everyone else in their organization to do the same.

    The problem is that leaders spend greater time and energy on their
    organization’s products and services than they do on it’s culture, yet culture
    drives everything that happens in their organization, for better or worse.

    Leaders have never been asked to manage their team’s culture. They don’t
    know how. Yet the benefits of aligning practices to an organizational
    constitution are impressive:
    40 percent gains in employee engagement, 40 percent gains in customer service,
    and 35 percent gains in results and profits, all within 18 months of applying
    this framework.

    To reap these gains, leaders must assess the health of their current team
    or department or company culture. My book, The Culture Engine,
    presents five levels or degrees of workplace culture health. They include:

    • Dysfunction
      - This is the lowest quality level, indicating a culture of low trust,
      inconsistent performance, and consistent frustration when trying to
      get things done.
    • Tension -
      This level indicates that trust is slightly better but below standard.
      Performance is slightly better but remains inconsistent. Disagreements
      occur regularly, but overt conflict is not as common.
    • Civility
      - This is the middle ground and represents the minimum standard of culture
      quality. At this level, leaders and team members are treated with
      respect. Interactions are formal and professional. Performance
      is consistently good. Disagreements about ideas are conducted calmly
      without denigrating the leader or team member's commitment, skills,
      or role.
    • Acknowledgement
      - This quality level is reflected in the active recognition and expression
      of thanks and gratitude for effort, accomplishment, service, and
      citizenship. Team members do not wait for acknowledgement from
      leaders - they proactively thank each other. Customers are treated
      respectfully. The phrase "thank you” is heard a lot.
    • Validation
      - This quality level demands the active valuing of team members' skills,
      ideas, enthusiasm, and talents. Leaders frequently delegate authority
      and responsibility to talented, engaged team members. Productivity is
      consistently high. Cooperative problem solving and team work is the norm.

    The research proves
    that teams that implement and align to an organizational constitution enjoy a
    validating culture. That quality level is reflected in consistent team
    member engagement, customers being WOW'ed daily, and exceeding performance
    expectations over time.

    To what degree is yours a validating culture? Add your comments below.

    S. Chris
    Edmonds
     is a sought-after speaker, author, and executive consultant. After
    a 15-year career leading successful teams, Chris founded his consulting
    company, The
    Purposeful Culture Group,
     in 1990. Chris has also served as a senior
    consultant with The Ken Blanchard Companies since 1995. He is the author or
    co-author of seven books, including Amazon best sellers The Culture Engine and Leading
    At A Higher Level
     with Ken Blanchard. Learn from his blog posts,
    podcasts, assessments, research, and videos at http://drivingresultsthroughculture.com.
    Get free resources plus weekly updates from Chris by subscribing here.
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