12Signs your culture is

broken

1Misalignment

Misalignment among leaders causes confusion. Misinterpretation creates conflicting agendas and causes waste. Time and money are lost trying to decipher the correct focus and course of action.

Leaders are responsible for providing clarity, to ensure that people understand the organisational 'what', the strategy and equally important is the purpose.

How can your people be expected to deliver the right things without clarity?

2When a leader is more concerned with their own agenda than that of the organisation,  delivering the strategy becomes extremely difficult. They may be concerned with advancing their career, achieving a bonus, getting one over their colleagues. They recruit in their own image, looking for similar traits and then hold them back by holding on to them.

Whatever their reason, the impact is wasteful, costly and could put the organisation at risk.

Does your structure and the leadership incentives you have in place drive the behaviours you need?

Self Interest

3Focusing on the wrong stuff

Being clear what you are working on and how it contributes to the big picture is fundamental. Focusing on things because you always have doesn’t make them the right things. Be sure you are utilising your resources in the right areas and on those areas that will deliver the greatest impact on your strategy.

Are you making it easy for your people to make the right choices?

4Lack of TRUST

Trust is a two way thing. To get it you must be prepared to give it.

Do your people trust your leaders to ‘do the right thing’, to be open (as far as is practical), fair and consistent? Patrick Lencioni positions trust as the foundation stone. The absence of trust being one of the five dysfunctions of teams. 

Do you trust your people to ‘do the right thing’ or do you design in processes to prevent them from doing it wrong?

5Silos

Everyone knows that silos are unhealthy yet we still allow them to develop in our organisations. Value is lost through a lack of communication and collaboration between teams. Diversity of opinion and inclusive thinking are essential to increase productivity and unlock potential.

Things developed in isolation will hit (often preventable) obstacles further down the line. 

Does your environment encourage diversity of thinking and value different opinions?

6Failing to learn

Failure is an essential part of success. Just ask Sir James Dyson who reportedly 'failed' over 5,000 times on route to developing his first bag-less vacuum cleaner.

Nobody gets things right all of the time. Your attitude to failure has a huge bearing on your culture and behaviours. Embrace failure and you will take the opportunity to learn and grow.  However, we often fear failure and, to protect ourselves, we inadvertently build cultures that look to apportion blame. A proactive attitude to learning without fear of repercussion is essential to grow and develop the organisation.

When was the last time you and your team truly examined a failure to really understand how to improve?

7Not prepared to take risks

People don't take calculated risks unless they believe they have the psychological safety within which to do so.  Google invested years understanding what makes teams effective. Charles Duhigg shares the Google story in his book 'Smarter Faster Better'. In it, he talks about Psychological Safety in context of effective teams.

If your people don't feel 'safe' they won't have a go.  This means you miss out on creativity, discourage innovation with people disengaging and not taking ownership to solve problems.

What are you missing out on?

The tenets of Psychological Safety:1. Allowing others too fail safely2. Freedom to question others choices3. Trust is never undermined4. Respect (and encourage) divergent opinions

8Action without THINKING

Feel like it's groundhog day?  It's likely that your people are in auto pilot, doing the same things day in day out.  This may be fine whilst you are getting the results you want, however if you are looking for continuous improvement or you need to improve your results, you will need to change your thinking. 

Your thinking directly affects the actions you take. It’s those actions that determine the results you get. All too often, organisations focus their attention on improving the actions and assume the quality of thinking is in place to effect the change.

What organisational habits exist? Do your people recognise the need to change and do they have the tools to change their habits and behaviours?

9Internal Politics

Organisational politics will always exist. The question is, how much damage do politics cause? Every time your people have to navigate the internal politics amongst departments, colleagues and leaders it drains their energy. It's like facing the dementors from Harry Potter.

Are you making it easy for your people to flourish?

10It’s all about me

Ever met the leader who takes all the credit yet passes on the blame? This type of ego centric leadership is a sure fire way to alienate people.  In fact, people will quickly work out how they are managed and develop coping mechanisms to ensure they can get by. This leadership behaviour will cause your people to play well within their limits, they will be unlikely or unwilling to take risks?

How do you spot this type of behaviour? What cultural dynamics may be causing or amplifying their behaviour? What are you prepared to do about it?

11Living with Interference

InterferenceInterference

You know you have a real problem when your people have accepted the status quo.  They no longer challenge, they just get on with it, they accept it is the way it is.  If this is the case your people may feel it's not worth it or might have lost interest altogether.

Whatever their reason, this is costing the business, millions! 

The potential to improve and grow is lost within a sea of disengagement. 

Where are you as a business getting in your own way?

12Inability to give (and take) feedback

Having to give feedback triggers emotional feelings, perhaps that we may upset someone by highlighting an area they could react negatively to. Our perceptions shape the reaction we are expecting to see. As the recipient we are also likely to have an emotional response, we are likely to react defensively. 

How can you create a culture where feedback is central to everything, where people feel ‘safe’ both giving and receiving feedback?

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions." Ken BlanchardWhy then, do we find it so hard to give feedback?  Why also, do we find it tough to receive feedback?

Creating mindsets that unlock productivity and realise potential

"In just 90-days we have not only

identified over £500k of savings

across the business, but improved

engagement, streamlined processes,

and freed up almost 30 hours a week

by removing duplication."

UK Food Manufacturer

12Signs your culture is

broken1. Misalignment2. Self interest3. Focusing on the wrong stuff4. Lack of trust5. Silos6. Failing to learn

7. Not prepared to take risks8. Action without thinking9. Internal politics10.It's all about me11.Living with interference12.Inability to give (& take) feedback

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+44 (0) 7809 416 307ricky.muddimer@thinkingfocus.com

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