Culture is often critical to unlocking an organisation's greatest potential, but senior leaders often have difficulty identifying and leveraging the functional aspects of their organisation's culture in order to enhance their brand, improve business results and fulfil their organisation's purpose. In this article, we explore some of the foundations for establishing a high-performance culture.
What is culture?
Culture is a set of shared beliefs, values and behaviours that guide people's decisions and actions.
The culture of an organisation is a reflection of its values and is defined by the beliefs, behaviours and attitudes that are shared by its employees.
Culture is too often an undervalued asset in companies. It can make or break any organisation. Employees that feel valued and respected, will perform better. Those that don’t, will leave.
It’s no secret that good culture helps attract top talent, retain it and develop leaders across all levels of the organisation but to create a high-performing culture, it’s important to understand what drives people to act in certain ways at work — what motivates them?
A high-performing culture is one that is not just well-intentioned but also a pleasure to work in.
It starts with an environment where people are valued and respected as individuals and where they feel safe to bring their whole selves to work.
A high-performing culture also has clear expectations about what is required from everyone, including managers and leaders. This helps employees feel secure in the knowledge that they are working towards the same goals as their colleagues, which increases their sense of belonging to the team.
The role of culture in creating high-performing organisations.
Culture is the single most important factor in determining whether an organisation is high-performing or not. High performers have a strong team culture that supports their business strategy and drives success.
The best way to create these conditions is by creating a set of principles for your company culture. These principles should be based on your company's values, focus areas and vision for the future, as well as being realistic about what you can achieve within a certain time frame.
Culture is something that is developed over time through a combination of people, processes and systems that are all aligned with the organisation's vision, values and goals.
It's important to remember that culture isn't something you can simply buy off the shelf. It has to be built from the ground up by all members of the team working together towards a common goal.
Culture is made up of three main components: people, processes and systems. These all interact together to form a coherent whole which ultimately determines how people behave and act within an organisation and how effective they are at achieving their objectives as part of a team or department.
Discover what is unique about your organisation's culture.
When you think about it, the purpose of a culture is to help people do their jobs. How do we make people more productive? How do we improve quality? How do we create an environment where people are happy, engaged and healthy?
Culture is not something that can be designed in a vacuum. It has to be based on the unique set of circumstances, challenges and opportunities facing your organisation.
Every organisation has its own unique culture because no two workplaces are exactly the same. Every workplace has its own set of challenges and opportunities. So creating a high-performing culture requires understanding what makes your organisation different from others.
Here are three questions you need to ask yourself if you want to create a high-performing culture:
What purpose do you serve?
What makes you different from other organisations that do similar things?
What is unique about my organisation's culture?
Helping leaders discover and communicate their unique value proposition.
There are two main types of culture: functional and social. Social culture is the way people interact with each other. Functional culture is what people do.
Organisations require both types of culture to be successful, but they have different goals and outcomes. Social culture is about relationships and interactions; functional culture is about tasks and outcomes.
Leaders can leverage the functional aspects of their organisation's culture to create a high-performing organisation. The key is understanding where your organisation's functional strengths lie, then leveraging them to improve performance.
The following questions can help you identify the functional aspects of your organisation's culture:
What kinds of behaviour do we value?
What are we proud of?
What kind of behaviour gets rewarded?
What kinds of behaviours are rewarded?
For example, if it's innovation then there will likely be an emphasis on creativity and risk-taking, whereas if it's compliance then there might be more emphasis on rules and procedures.
Where do people spend their time?
Where do people spend their money?
Where does the leadership spend its time?
Is it focused on things that align with the values identified above or not?
High-performing cultures are created by people and therefore can be developed over time.
Creating a high-performing organisation is a multi-faceted, ongoing process. It requires the engagement of leadership, HR departments and an organisation's employees. Culture is created from the top down and is shaped through daily actions and behaviours.
We have identified some of the best results-oriented practices to help you design a culture that drives performance. We based our findings on multiple research reports and industry leaders, who are experienced in designing high-performing teams in different sectors.
To create your own successful team, you must understand the difference between high performance and high potential. A high-potential employee may not always be a good performer.
To get ahead start, download our leader's guide to creating a high-performing culture in 2022 by clicking the link below:
https://www.elrexecutive.com.au/build-a-culture-of-high-performance-in-2022
