Building a Great Place to Work: A 6-Step System for Deliberately Creating your Culture

Culture forms in 2 Ways:

1. Accidentally
2. Deliberately

Culture happens for better or for worse. Every organisation has a culture and proactively choosing to create it in a deliberate and intentional way can build a high-performing workplace, a great place to work, and we all want that! Individuals experience culture in the context of their everyday work experiences. It’s the behaviours that people see in their immediate environment that influence their perceptions of the organisation and then their own behaviours.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

It’s the behaviours that people see in their immediate work environment that influences their perceptions of the organisation… and then their own behaviours.

We know that people will follow organisational or team norms (even when they know they’re wrong) to fit in! Because we are social creatures and we are hardwired to connect with other people in our tribe. Exclusion from the tribe, not fitting in, is painful and our brain thinks that self-survival is at stake. Watch the MasterClass Extract below to find out what you can do about it!

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What We Know…

What we know is that one of the biggest influences on culture is the quality of your leaders. We know that it’s leadership that drives culture which in turn drives performance. We also know that culture shapes leadership. Now, we do a lot of coaching and 360-degree feedback at Great Managers® and I’ve often spoken to leaders who’ve changed organisations and are surprised at the very-different results they’ve received in their 360 survey after the change. The realisation is that the environment is shaping their leadership style too!

After today, I want you to think about the importance of co-creating your culture. Everyone needs to be involved. We can’t just leave it to leadership. We need to get everyone engaged and everyone involved.

What are the Benefits of a Great Culture

Even small improvements can deliver huge benefits to your business:
• Financial – the better the culture and employee engagement the better the bottom line results
• You’re more likely to attract and retain talented staff
• Morale is higher – staff are more energetic & enthusiastic
• Responsiveness to change is better
• There is more co-operation and teamwork
• Productivity is higher
• Physical and emotional safety improves – there tends to be fewer workers compensation claims and less grievances
• Reduced staff turnover and absenteeism

Culture provides the greatest source of competitive advantage for private sector businesses and the greatest source of reputation and efficiency in other sectors.

The 6-Step System to Deliberately Build Your Culture

1: Inspire a shared vision.
2 : Bring your values to life.
3: Develop great leaders.
4: Know your numbers.
5: Attend to your E, P and R (Environment, Practices, Rituals)
6: Reward the right behaviours

If you would like to know how to apply this model to have a business that is the envy of your competitors, you can check out the full MasterClass via our MasterClass page.