Culture Management is Weight Management
How is culture management like weight management?
When our friend tells us they are on a new diet, we initially congratulate them. But when numerous diets don’t “work” and they then come back to us with another diet they are trying, we can’t help but eye roll. We become exhausted hearing about the newest diet trend. That’s how employees feel when the workplace culture starts to shift, but nothing really changes and it continues to be that same old culture. They later eye roll too and just resent you.
Most business owners and founders know that culture is important, but they’re not sure where to even start or how to create lasting culture change.
They’ll try something new which is great and that should be celebrated, but oftentimes there is a lack of follow through or consistent change. It’s not normally for a lack of effort. In most cases, they have the best of intentions. However, when times get stressful or business is busy, it is easy to resort back to our old ways and do what we are familiar with. Those “culture initiatives” are quickly left by the wayside, leaving employees more annoyed than before you started.
After coming up with the idea of Culture Lab, I met with tons of businesses who already had great workplace culture and those who wanted a better culture. I asked them, why they think so many companies fail at implementing a winning culture?
One common answers was they were too “busy” to continuously work on it.
Sure, we’re all busy. But at the end of the day, we always find a way to make time for the things that really matter. You’re never too busy to eat everyday, are you?
We backslide as soon as we are too busy or stressed because we’ve told ourselves it’s “easier” to eat poorly and to skip the gym. Many diets fail because we don’t change our lifestyles to incorporate these new healthy habits and behavior into our daily lives.
So what’s the best way to create lasting change in both of these cases, health/fitness and workplace culture? Paid accountability.
Like nourishing your body every day, your workplace culture has to be constantly nourished and cared for. This is where the Culture Concierge comes in.
In an effort to not make culture the “flavor of the month,” I decided I wanted to talk with every founder and business owner going through the Culture Lab once a week for 15 minutes for the duration of the 90-day program. It is my job to kindly nudge them, remind them of what they set out to accomplish and support them to be successful. Hey, we’re all human and we could all use some accountability — even those with the best intentions.
There are some weeks that people get what they needed to get done between calls. But there are other weeks where they haven’t had a chance to even think about what they were supposed to do before talking with me.
Either way, that’s okay!
That fifteen minute call is a reminder and it oftentimes turns into forced reflection for the business owners. Are we still on the track to success? Just like when losing weight, noticing progress motivates people to make more progress. It’s essential to celebrate along the way.
This ongoing accountability helps support the workplace culture development process, bringing real results that lead to a lasting change in behavior. Over time, the goal is for them to no longer need the Culture Concierge to remind them to nourish their cultures. It will be a habit to tend to their cultures and they will know when it’s time to check in, take a pulse of their workplace and make some adjustments if need be.
Similar to how diets fail without a change of lifestyle, your culture efforts will continue to fail, too, unless you have a strategy and support to implement habits which cultivate a new workstyle.
