By: Cynthia Kyriazis, Chief Experience Officer, The Culture Think Tank
The term ‘organizational culture’ can be defined in many ways.
We define organizational culture as: the collection of behaviors of the people within the organization and their behaviors toward each other and the workplace.
A ‘healthy culture’ is another one of the many things we are also asked to define.
We define it as one whose leaders: listen, care, and take action on what employees identified as needing from their leaders.
If leaders fail to address expressed needs, the impact on any organization’s cultural health usually ends up being very costly. If employees don’t…
Trust… they won’t follow their leaders.
Fail to receive clear communication… they don’t know how to proceed or how to prioritize their efforts to align with strategic objectives and goals.
Feel connected to each other and the organization… they begin to feel more distanced, detached and dismissive of leaders and the organization’s objectives.
Have a sense of ownership… accountability is not to be found.
We measure key areas that impact and ultimately determine the health of any organization. They include:
- We measure both the level and intensity of anxiety within the organization. Why? Because high anxiety is the root cause for both low well-being and low culture scores.
- How connected are employees feeling towards each other and the organization as a whole? The result shows the level of engagement.
- Leadership behaviors. We ask employees what they want their leaders to continue, stop and start doing.
- Leadership actions. We work with leaders to develop a plan of action to address their employees concerns and help them feel leaders listened, cared and are taking the beginning steps of some type of action to address these concerns.
Creating a healthy company culture is a goal. And it’s a process that takes shape over time.
It starts to happen when leaders begin to learn and understand what their employees want and need.
It grows healthier through the focused and consistent behavior of leaders who commit the resources and time needed to be successful.
And all of it begins with measuring the right things. No better time to begin than now.
Cynthia Kyriazis is the Chief Experience Officer at The Culture Think Tank. Her experience includes executive coaching, consulting and training.
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