Whether you’re aware of it or not, your company’s culture influences every aspect of your business. It is formed as a result of how you and your team do business. If your overall company culture is poor, there are things you can do to help shape it and cultivate it to make it one that improves your performance and results.
In this article, we’ll dive into a few ways you can effectively change your company’s culture.
5 Tips To Help Change Company Culture
When your company culture needs an upgrade, this is a great place to start. Read on for five ways to create the workplace culture you and your team deserve.
Start With Purpose
The first thing you should do is go back to your purpose or mission. What is the purpose of your everyday work? Is that purpose clear throughout your organization? Do people in your company understand why they do what they do?
Maybe you haven’t clearly defined your purpose well in the past or perhaps you haven’t done a very good job of making it clear throughout your organization. Whatever the case may be, now is the time to do it.
When you share a compelling purpose, it inspires and aligns your team. A clear purpose can also influence decision making and the day to day actions and behaviors of your workforce. A clearly articulated and upheld company mission or purpose is the backbone of a strong culture.
Assess Your Current Culture
Once you’ve got a clear purpose, another good step is to assess your company and its current culture. A great way to do that is through conducting a simple employee satisfaction or employee engagement survey. Feedback from your team will help you know how they are feeling about working for your organization and what is working well and what isn’t.
Once results from the survey have been tallied, share them with your team, and don’t shy away from the good, the bad, or the ugly. Next, pick one or two things that are lacking or need improvement and develop a plan to get better in those areas.
Once the plan is developed, share it with your team. Also, don’t forget to provide frequent updates on progress with the plan. Doing all of this will show your team that you are interested in their feedback and committed to providing a better work environment.
Create Collective Goals
Another great way to align your team and increase motivation is to define collective goals. Unlike individual goals, collective goals are shared across the organization. These goals could be centered around important aspects of your business such as customer satisfaction, revenue, production, employee safety, sales, and others. Having collective goals will encourage teamwork.
Once collective goals are established, create a scoreboard to track progress. Place this scoreboard in a highly visible and prominent location or send it out to your team frequently. Also, regularly update your team on progress toward goals and celebrate even small wins as you move towards reaching them. It also isn’t a bad idea to tie some type of reward or recognition to the achievement of the goals. For example, if we reach our goal of $100,000 in revenue for a month we will celebrate by holding a big company party with food and gifts for all.
Collective goals and rewards can really jump start a culture that is struggling.
Set An Example
You’ve established clarity around a shared purpose, you’ve evaluated your current culture, and you’ve created collective goals. Now it’s time to really boost culture by practicing what you preach.
At the end of the day, everyone in your company will be looking to the leaders to act and behave in ways that are aligned with the company’s purpose, and that shows they are committed to the collective goals.
One of the most common mistakes leaders make that undermines their effectiveness and hurts their culture is behavioral misalignment. Behavioral misalignment is saying one thing but then doing another. Thus, leaders must prove they are committed to the organization’s goals and purpose through their actions and behavior.
Perhaps the best way to encourage changed behavior is to lead by example. If you expect one thing from your team but then do another yourself, your culture will suffer. Thus it is crucial that you reinforce positive behaviors through the example you set.
Hire Professionals To Help
If you want surefire tips and strategies to help you change your company’s culture, the best thing you can do is hire professionals. To us, company culture is not just a buzzword that comes up during interviews. Instead, it is the heart and soul of your company and its most important part. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great said, “Culture is not just one aspect of the game, it is the game.” We agree.
When your culture appears to be lacking, The Center For Company Culture can help you take the necessary steps to cultivate a work environment you and your employees can be proud of. Strong company culture can transform your organization’s performance and results. We’ve seen it happen over and over again.
We know that improving a struggling culture is no small feat, and we would love to help you. Reach out to us today and get started on your journey to a high-performing company culture that transforms results.
