Building a Great Culture – Part 7

‘Culture is dynamic, not static. Everyone in your organization creates your culture by what they think, say and do each day. Culture is lead from the top down but it comes to life from the bottom up.’ – Jon Gordon, an American author and speaker.  

While it is certainly true that the organisational culture starts at the top, it is only half the story. Leadership alignment, though extremely important, is just the first step. To bring the culture to life you need to get every member on board and that happens with a bottom-up approach. Say, the top brass in an organisation wants to implement a new process or initiative, would it then not become incumbent on them to explain the reasoning to every member affected by the new process? Why this change and why now? What objectives you hope to achieve with it? How will this impact them, and what can they do differently, if at all, to take the greatest benefit from it?  

While leaders know what it takes for the team to succeed, all too often, they don’t hold themselves to these standards. It is therefore crucial for a leader to build a dynamic organisational culture where every member from top to bottom understands why it is important for the organisation to exist. This simple mindset will allow your organisation to build a great culture. Does your organisation develop and nurture a culture that is adaptive to change?