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How To Fix a Broken Culture – Your First 3 Steps

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Workplace culture: it’s one of those things that becomes your last concern when work is crazy, chaotic, and deadlines loom. It’s also something that sounds like it would be awesome to think about if you had a spare 5 minutes…ever. It’s like a luxury item that companies with more money than sense shell out for.

But the reality is, one way or another, your company already has its own culture.

Like diets, habits, and schedules, we think that unless we are intentionally pursuing these things, they aren’t happening. But you already have a diet without trying – whether it’s cheeseburgers all day or living off lattes, whatever you are eating is your diet.

It’s the same thing with habits. It doesn’t need to be January 6th and you’re killing it with your new running/vitamins/gallon-of-water-a-day habits. I mean, hitting snooze 7 times before you finally tear yourself from bed, and let’s face it, scrolling social media at dinner? Those are totally habits too.

My point is, you’ve already got a whole workplace culture going, even if you have never put any intentional thought or action into it. Just ask your employees. They know what the company culture is even if you think you haven’t built one yet.

Just like the bad habits that simply creep into our lives unnoticed until someone else points them out, a workplace culture that comes about on it’s own without the company’s core values as it’s North Star, has a good chance of being a broken culture. Not out of any malignancy on the part of management or bad employees. It’s simply like a garden that needs regular attention and weeding or it will be overtaken by vines. Then it won’t look like it’s supposed to, and it definitely won’t produce what it’s supposed to.

Before we can fix a broken culture, we need to identify what’s broken. There are some telltale signs that you don’t have the kind of culture your company needs:

Decreased Performance Levels

Disengaged employees cost U.S. companies anywhere from $450-$550 billion each year. If you’ve noticed a downturn in performance, it’s likely your culture needs some tweaking.

High Employee Turnover Rate

If people are defecting to greener pastures, it’s time to start working on your pastures. 1 in 4 workers quit their jobs last year. If you aren’t one of the places those workers are escaping to, you should be!

Office Gossip

This is just a really tangible way to gauge if your culture is healthy and thriving, or if it’s not. If you haven’t already been keeping an ear out for gossip, that’s a sign you’re not listening. And if you’ve already noticed it, then you’ve got yourself a classic sign of negative company culture. 

So we’ve identified there’s a problem. Let’s get to fixing it, shall we? If you haven’t already had the pleasure of using it, let me introduce you to this handy Interactive Metric Toolkit we have at the Culture Think Tank! We’re going to focus on the first 3 steps of this process to get you started, but this handy tool addresses all sorts of behaviors to fix what’s broken and improve your company culture.

Step 1: Set Clear Expectations and Priorities

This is one of your key responsibilities and needs to be worked on daily. Don’t make any assumptions. Don’t assume your employees know what you want them to be doing, even if they tell you they know! Remember that gossip will always fill the void when there’s a lack of understanding. Instead, make sure weekly duties are clear and visible to everyone. Use sticky notes if you need to, or a digital system can work quite well. And don’t be afraid to check in with people during the week. This will help keep focus and momentum.

Step 2: Ask Them How They’re Doing and Offer to Help

As a leader, it’s vital that you demonstrate that you care about your workforce. More often than not, when you offer to help, they will be fully capable of completing their assignments without you. But taking the time to check in and offer will be appreciated.  When people know you care about them, you help build a sense of confidence and trust, which improves the sense of well-being within the workplace and strengthens company culture. Begin to develop a habit of asking each person on your team “how is your day going?” or “how are you doing?” And before your wrap up team meetings, leave five minutes for your team to share the actions you can do to help them.

Step 3: Be Approachable and Open to New Ideas

This is what an open door policy should mean. When you hear new ideas, you need to reinforce that you really heard them. Being approachable and open to new ideas is essential to building trust and inspiring innovation. A simple way to demonstrate that you heard an idea is log the idea. Create a parking lot of ideas and refer to the ones you actually implemented. A parking lot is an excellent way to demonstrate you are listening even if you don’t act on every idea.

If your culture is broken, these steps should set you on the path of righting it. Of course, cultivating a positive and encouraging workplace culture needs to be a daily practice. But the more you start implementing these tips, the more it becomes a habit. One of the healthy, intentional habits!

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