The Real Culture War
As a senior person who has founded, scaled and sold digital businesses filled with people, I’m often asked what my leadership style is. Often, discussions around leadership style tend to veer towards what kind of culture we thrive in and what we, as leaders, create.
The greatest misconception about culture is that it’s based on those empty words HR places on the walls rather than how people go about their business inside them. How we collaborate, communicate, celebrate and commiserate is, by far, more important than what we say we do. Engagement trumps all.
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2023 report puts data behind the story of how employees experienced life and work last year when it came to being "busy" and engaged. The 5 key takeaways are:
1) 90% of UK employees are not enthused by their work and workplace. Globally, combined low engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion dollars, or 9% of global GDP.
2) Worldwide, 44% of employees said they experienced a lot of stress the previous day.
3) Across the countries and areas surveyed, 51% of currently employed workers said they are watching for or actively seeking a new job.
4) Nearly six in 10 employees don't have any supportive bonds with their coworkers, boss or their organization.
5) The manager is the linchpin of engagement - 70% of engagement is attributable to the manager. But most managers are themselves quiet quitting.
The data is telling: we’re not having great experiences at work and it starts with how we are led.
I’ve been in an organisation where the founder is proud he can predict the threshold of time his staff will be with him before they leave; it’s a sinister way he can be seen to give equity and then retain it. Toxicity doesn’t come in a more concentrated and short-sighted form: his team is constantly getting new hires up to speed and replacing valuable team members due to attrition. What he doesn’t realise is that if he had more self-awareness, his business would be 10% more prosperous than it is now.
Interestingly, the Gallup report cites that a significant contributor to employee disengagement arises from them not knowing what is expected of them and how to do it. My “best boss” made it clear to me what was expected, the tools and concepts were laid out nicely, and I was left to get on with it. To this day, he is still one of my favourite people.
I, along with leaders of successful companies, realise that EX (psychological safety, speak up culture and accountability) is absolutely crucial to success because it reduces the abysmal attrition rate we saw during The Great Resignation and it lowers the pressure on the hiring team.
Leaders need to see the value of manifesting positive behaviours and designing workable frameworks to empower and connect colleagues. My good friend, Sam Patel, makes a good point on #99 of his 116¹²³ Safeguards against Workplace Scapegoating, Scandal, Self-Sabotage, Suffering and Suicide long read: if you’re going boldly, you need a ship’s counsellor.
“As the ship's counsellor, she brought a unique perspective by using her empathic abilities to understand and address the emotional needs of the entire crew. This made her an invaluable asset in promoting mental well-being and fostering a supportive environment. She would flank Picard (Captain) and offer pure intuition, and insights and inherently always remained unhinged in steering the crew to do the right thing.” - Sam Patel
As a founding member of Google’s Culture Club, my role was to ensure “Googliness” was transported from big centres like Mountain View and London into satelllites like South Africa. We had to ensure that future Googlers were positive, friendly team players that were dedicated to life-long learning and had the same high standards we did, after all, organising the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful requires it.
The leadership at Google realised that distilling and effectively transposing their culture was a huge benefit to the organisation as it grew.
As we go about our careers and we mature as leaders, it not only makes commercial but also common sense to create environments in which we can bring and enjoy our authentic selves, after all, we only have one life and we are set to spend the majority of it at work.
Right here and now, we need to commit to that sense of empathy and humanity that makes us great people to know and work with. I surely am.
P.S Bruce Daisley’s Podcast on How to build a truly engaged team is highly recommended listening.
