Make Culture Unconditional

Defining, creating, and strengthening a company culture can enhance alignment, connection, and even employee retention. To achieve those bold ambitions, organizations often create complex models, programs, and communication campaigns to share a newly defined culture with employees. This work is often referred to as a “journey” and can last years — but by the time the campaign has been rolled out, the culture has probably changed not just once but many times. The problem with this traditional approach to culture work, although well intentioned, is that the net cast is usually broad, the content is over-generalized, and execution on a team level is optional.

As important and intuitive as culture is, very few organizations get it right to the degree that it can be counted on by every employee because the overarching experience of working on a team varies greatly from one group to another — in other words, it’s conditional. The little “c” culture that employees experience in a team is different from, but no less important than, the big “C” culture of the organization as a whole. Big “C” culture is a commitment that the organization makes to each and every employee about what they can expect it to feel like to work at the organization, no matter what team they’re on, no matter where they work, and no matter where they land in the org chart. Big “C” culture exemplifies an organization’s employer brand as a promise, a unifying experience, and an expectation — an unconditional culture.

Recent academic research has found no positive correlation between the cultural values a company emphasizes externally and employees’ belief that the company actually embodies those values. Through my experience working with HR leaders and understanding the feelings of their workforces — and as an employee of a company myself — I’ve found that in order for a culture to be unconditional, it must be specific to the organization, clear, credible, and consistent while still leaving space for teams to have their own ways of working.

To be real, sustainable, and meaningful, culture must be:

• Differentiating. It’s tempting to define your culture by looking to the outside. Complicated frameworks and processes are interesting to read about, but they often result in overengineered, over-visualized, generic bullet points that could apply to any company. Other organizations’ cultures aren’t yours; they’re theirs. U.S. health care organization AdventHealth offers an example of a beautiful expression of unique differentiation. It describes one of its cultural tenets as “Love me.” Love is not a word that you often see explicitly stated in business communications. To some, it might feel fluffy — until you visit one of its hospitals. Not only do the employees feel loved, but patients and family members do too. A meaningful culture is differentiated and specific to your organization.
• Clear. Descriptions of culture should be ridiculously understandable. So many business words are overused and have lost their meaning. There’s no need to be fancy. Cisco, a large technology company, has embedded the phrase “Give your ego the day off” into its work. Employees don’t need an explanation to understand it. Plain language is easier to understand and to translate, both into other languages and into an employee’s personal experience.
• Credible. Yes, actions do speak louder than words. One of the reasons culture often feels like corporate fluff is that it’s conditional. If you’re wondering whether something is really an element of an organization’s culture and the answer is “It depends,” then it’s not. Kohl’s, a large U.S. retailer, simply says, “We put customers first.” It gives employees the responsibility of making sure customers feel important. Front-line associates, especially, are empowered to help customers find the best ways to save, without having to ask anyone for permission. This credible tenet extends beyond store customers to internal customers as well. Culture can go from real to fable very quickly when it’s not felt and supported by every employee on every team.
• Consistent. The culture element can’t be “kinda, sorta, maybe, sometimes” — meaning employees experience a different culture depending on what team they’re on. Instead, there needs to be a true, nonnegotiable commitment from leaders to support a common big “C” culture. One technology and service company described its focus on clients as a priority above any others. It was a foundational element of the company, serving not just as a tagline but a promise. When inevitable calendar conflicts arise for this organization’s subject matter experts, clients always come first, regardless of the potential value of a prospective client. Interestingly, this cultural tenet ends up being a selling point with those prospects who missed out on time with the company expert. Sales prospects love the promise that if they were to become a client, they, too, would be prioritized. Current and future employees want to know what they can always count on from your organization.

Few organizations have a real-world big “C” culture that describes an experience employees can count on, despite the well-meaning phrases created to promote an unconditional culture. They might have a lot of robust little “c” cultures — teams whose members can count on one another and their leaders. But a meaningful culture isn’t an either/or; it’s a giant and.

In the fast-paced world of always-changing priorities, markets, and macroeconomic environments, employees need to be able to count on some aspects of their work being consistent. Knowing what you can count on — like an unconditional culture — makes it much easier to be nimble with the inevitable surprises that come your way.