Culture is a hot topic. It was the Merriam-Webster “word of the year” for 2014.
Leaders and experts across the world are talking about how to develop an agile culture, implement a lean culture, overcome the culture clash in acquisitions, and many other areas of culture change.
Unfortunately, the reality is that most of these leaders and experts are actually focusing their efforts on climate and not dealing with the deeper, more powerful subject of culture. I didn’t understand the difference until the past few years.
Organizational climate is the shared perceptions and attitudes about the organization. The most visible area of a focus on culture that is actually climate is all the effort to measure and improve employee engagement.
This focus on engagement did yield results for some organizations. Unfortunately, according to Gallup’s Employee Engagement Study, the number of employees engaged at work has barely moved over the course of the last 15 years.
You know the drill. Employees are asked, for example, whether they know what’s expected of them, whether their opinions seem to count, and if their manager is paying attention to them. Organizations compile the results and “action plans” are developed.
It’s not just engagement surveys where people think they are getting to culture. The vast majority of so-called “culture” surveys and “great workplace” surveys primarily measure climate. Employees might be asked if the mission is clear, benefits are good, management shows appreciation, teamwork is encouraged, or whether the organization is effective at managing change. Climate, climate, climate.
Organizational culture is the shared beliefs and assumptions about the organization’s expectations and values. These unwritten rules and perceived expectations drive our behavior in organizations. When faced with problems, challenges, or goals it often helps to understand the aspects of culture that either inhibit or support effectiveness.
To surface these aspects of culture, employees should be asked, for example, if they are expected or implicitly required to:
We all have experienced the positive and negative impact of these perceived expectations. In some cases they help to propel our thinking forward to “act on what we know” and accomplish great things with constructive behavior.
In other cases, they lead to passive or aggressive behavior that undermines our effectiveness. Some organizations may actually be paralyzed by fear and plagued with inaction when they need the exact opposite.
Edgar Schein, arguably the No. 1 culture expert in the world, wrote in the Handbook of Culture and Climate:
A climate can be locally created by what leaders do, what circumstances apply, and what environments afford. A culture can evolve only out of mutual experience and shared learning.”
There is value in understanding how both climate and culture are influencing our work to effectively manage problems, challenges, or goals. The results of a focus on changing climate may lead to some quick wins, like managers temporarily engaging employees more effectively, but the improvements may be short-lived unless a culture shift occurs. I’ll share a clear example.
I was appointed president of a manufacturing organization. It was clearly a command and control culture. I vividly recall a top leader yelling at me: “You are from the new school that’s all about hugs and kisses, I am from the old school that’s about performance and giving people a swift kick in the ass when they need it.”
You can imagine what the culture was like as this aggressive behavior at the top led to extremely passive and conventional behavior on the front lines since most employees only did what they were told.
We embarked on a journey to quickly transform the organization. We managed three phases of improvement over a two-year period to support shared-learning and results:
Our business results improved substantially over the two years in nearly every area. The board member I reported to said “I can’t believe the change.”
We conducted a “culture” survey at the beginning of this journey but it was one that primarily measured areas of climate. We moved from the lowest possible score in eight of 12 categories to the top 20th percentile in most areas as the climate was transformed.
I was happy about the improved results, but was the culture completely transformed in two years as the survey results would have led many to believe? No way. I knew that while these climate results had clearly skyrocketed the culture journey was just underway.
I ended up leaving the organization to accept a role in a part of the country that was a better fit for my family. An acquisition was finalized soon after I left and I was replaced by someone with a dramatically different leadership style. The operating model we built began to fall apart and results deteriorated very fast. The Board decided to sell the assets to its largest competitor and the story was over. Climate success was short-lived and over-shadowed by the fragile state of our developing culture.
It’s critical to understand both climate and culture.
Have you heard of the difference between culture and climate? How have you successfully moved to the deeper side of culture to shift shared beliefs and assumptions about an organization’s expectations and values?
This post originally appeared on CultureUniversity.com.
