Toxic Cultures Cripple
Lately, we’ve been reading a lot about the locker-room cultures of sports teams and their coaching staffs. Whether it’s Urban Meyer, Head Coach with Ohio State, or one of his former assistant coaches at Florida, DJ Durkin, currently Head Coach at Maryland, the stories are beginning to sound all too familiar. It would seem that authoritarian styles of enlisting abusive treatment like bullying, intimidation, and outright physical abuse are more common than many of us might have thought. Despite the record of wins at Ohio, it is not a style that is sustainable or one that is likely to go unchallenged in today’s more transparent environment.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting an alternative because it’s more difficult to get away with this behavior, I’m suggesting an alternative because the data indicates that it’s a better way and if not in the locker room, then in your business!
Every year Deloitte produces an extensive study on trends in human capital. The topics that lead the discussions perennially include Leadership and Corporate Culture. There are other important issues to be sure but these head the pack in topics having a direct impact on profitability as linked to engagement (productivity), retention (institutional knowledge) and brand (sustainable competitive advantage).
I’ll tackle leadership in an upcoming installment but for now, just what is a corporate culture? Is it, “the way we do things around here”? Is it the value statement we post on the wall in our reception area? Is it how we’re perceived by our customers and competitors? I say it’s all them and none of them. Daniel James Brown, perhaps better than any other author I’ve read in a long time, illustrated culture within a team and engagement by its members when he stitched together a tale of triumph at the 1936 Olympics by an unlikely group of young men and gave it to us in his book The Boys in the Boat. Read it and see if you don’t agree!
More than anything else, a corporate culture is defined best by how we behave collectively with each other, with our customers, suppliers and our communities. It answers the question of whether our behavior is aligned with our mission. Those organizations who recognize this beyond the level of intellectual exercise and work at implementing it over the long term demonstrate greater returns than their peers in the same industry.
Nobody I speak to disagrees, but I often hear that we should’ve done this sooner and we’re just too busy now. When I hear this, I’m reminded of the question “When is the best time to plant a tree?” Of course, the answer is “30 years ago” but the second best answer is NOW.
What are you doing to ensure that toxicity does not creep into your workplace and threaten your legacy? I would suggest that many family businesses who practice developing their culture intentionally, see it more as an issue of strategy and finance than they do as one of human resources.
Consider thinking more strategically around using culture as a competitive advantage that can amp up your bottom line, move you closer to your vision, and ensure your legacy for the next generation.