How to Tell if your Culture is in Trouble

Organisations are quick to ensure that their functioning ‘hardware’ (Fixed assets, infrastructure, IT, systems & procedures) are in fine shape, but what about their ‘software’ (Culture, people alignment, engagement, commitment and dedication)? Not so much! Why so?

For starters, the intangible assets are human-based and therefore much more difficult to get into precision than the tangible assets, which are objectively based on tried and tested technologies. This often leads to surrendering to and living with suboptimal cultural conditions as an irredeemable reality. That’s one reason. Related to this, leadership are not always aware that their culture is in trouble. In my 21 years in this game, this is my critical 7-point checklist:

• Politics has captured your environment, where your people make decisions which are more self-serving than beneficial to the system as a whole.

• Negativity, conflict and tension have become systemic contagions.

• You are losing key people to other companies, rather than other countries, at an undue rate.

• Blaming is rife, with an absence of individual ownership and accountability.

• Internally focused, where what matters within is more important than what matters without, leading to heightened customer complaints.

• Your people are doing just enough to not get fired.

• Decreased productivity, even when the ‘hardware’ is upgraded.

All the above can begin to be turned around within a three-month timeframe, though it takes a sophisticated modality to shift the needle at your very core to build a permanent solution for redirection and renewed trajectory.

Codify your future!