Are You Overlooking the Impact That Your Culture Has on Your Success?

When you’re going about your daily business, does the culture of your organization pop up into your mind? Maybe you’re prompted to think about culture as you’re reading books and articles on organizational improvement by folks such as Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins, or Gino Wickman. The books may spark interest and a few great ideas, but then the real world takes you to another fire and culture takes a back seat to what you have right in front of you.

If you’re like most of us, there are a ton of other things going on that take up your head space so culture might be something you only think about once or twice a year. This probably isn’t giving it enough attention because culture impacts everything in your organization.

Your business has a culture, whether it’s intentional or not.  The question is, if you’re not cultivating it, is it the culture you want?  How do you know? 

Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Are Two Different Things

Some business leaders think that satisfaction surveys are the way to uncover the shared beliefs and values that make up a culture.  I have done some research on this and what I found surprised me. 

Employee engagement and satisfaction are two different things.

There’s no doubt that employee satisfaction is great but it’s pretty shallow when compared with what can be gained by the employee and the organization when employees are engaged in driving culture. The outcomes benefit people both personally and professionally and include longer tenure, better teamwork, and achievement of goals that advance the whole organization.

In a study of 500 employees, researchers found that 71% managers felt that employee engagement was one of the most important factors in overall company success.  Yet according to Gallup data, only 33% of employees reported they are engaged at work.

Find Out What’s Driving Your Culture with Open Ended Questions

How do we study employee engagement so that we can make the changes that will lead to improvement? There are tons of tools on the market that measure engagement, such as Emplify, and finding the right one for you can be challenging and expensive. Companies that use the tools get closer to positive engagement than those that don’t.  

The best way to learn about what’s driving the culture of your organization might be the simplest. Just start asking questions of your team leaders and members.  Ask open ended questions that allow people to talk and so you can probe on their answers. This is how you can dig in and find the hidden gems.

Once you find patterns in the answers, you can bring the insights back to your leadership team and create some goals to work on.

Study Engagement to Improve Culture

I can see how people could feel less engaged while they’re cooped up at home working remotely. Studying engagement could be more valuable than ever in the current environment. I hope this information provides just a few tips to help!

- Marty