Setting Yourself Up for Culture Success in 2021
By: Colin Ellis
Tags: Leadership, Change, Culture, Work, Team

Uncertain, confusing, unprecedented, challenging, disruptive — these are just some of the words used to describe the conditions that people have found themselves working in this year. Every organisation has had its own set of challenges. Of those that managed to survive the pandemic, some have thrived, some have remained static, whilst others have seen performance dip. One thing that has been clear, however, is the importance of workplace culture for not only long-term success but also short-term survival.

It is culture that determines how productive people are when they work from home, how flexible an organisation is to change, how technology is embraced and used and how visible senior leaders are at a time when employees need to see them.

New research released in Australia earlier this month from the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors reinforces this and emphasises the importance of the deliberate definition of culture in order to achieve success: ‘…defining expected culture [is] a precursor to requiring employees to behave in line with the desired culture.’

Yet many organisations still leave this definition process to chance or else use one of the following excuses to avoid investing in any kind of cultural evolution:

We did culture in [insert year of last engagement survey]

We don’t need to change, we just need to be more flexible

We want to wait for the right conditions/people

I don’t need to change my behaviour, others need to change theirs

We need to change our operating model/structure first; and

We don’t have the money/time to do culture this year.

Defining the culture required to meet the challenges or opportunities that 2021 will bring needs to be done as early as possible. You want people to start the new year with the knowledge of the behaviours that they need to demonstrate, the changes in the way they need to work together and the new ideas they have to consider, regardless of where they may be based. And you want them to feel connected to something that excites them.

They will have learned much about themselves and their colleagues (good and bad) throughout 2020 and that needs to be harnessed and discussed in a safe environment so that they can understand their own opportunities for growth as part of the cultural evolution plan.

Personal growth is an often overlooked facet of vibrant cultures. Those that provide their people with opportunities and feedback that serves to improve their technical or emotional knowledge will reap the rewards in terms of engagement and loyalty throughout the year.

Personal growth leads to improved happiness, happiness leads to productivity and productivity leads to results. Therefore, when you define the conditions for personal and organisational growth, goals are regularly achieved and a vibrant culture is maintained.

One of the big mistakes some organisations made this year when the pandemic hit was to reduce their investment in people at a time when they needed it most. Mckinsey — in a paper in April — went one step further and recommended that organisations increase their development budgets (for people and culture) in order to safeguard productive work for the remainder of this year. Those that followed this advice — and I’ve worked with a number of them — are in a much better position to learn from this year and to start 2021 positively.

Scientists have a name for this — it’s called the Fresh Start Effect (FSE). The FSE is a strategy for drawing a line under a previous performance period (or in this case, a year) and defining what needs to come next. It’s a chance to understand where you are, where you need to be, re-imagine a vision of the future and gain full commitment from everyone involved.

When it comes to culture, it’s worth remembering that only through a structured cultural definition process that incorporates members of the team, department or organisation can you gain this commitment to the conditions required for success within the next 12 months.

Vibrant culture, high performance and the ability to recover won’t happen by chance. It requires deliberate action. What are you doing to set yourself up for cultural success in 2021?