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The minute you try to define or pin down a culture, it shifts and changes. New people, a directional change in emphasis or circumstance, market intelligence or rumours and something significant in the way people interact and behave is different from one day to the next. When it comes to trying to pin down culture, the analogy of
attempting to put an octopus into a string vest seems apt!
The reality is, the more we try to name and shape culture the less we adapt it to the changing strategies and priorities that are so much the reality we inhabit. Our research into the shifting nature of organisational culture suggests viewing it as an active not passive helps– a verb (something doing), not a noun (something that just is). Our research also identifies the nature or source of that activity, which we coin ‘the tensions’. Nothing will move or change unless we exert pressure or create tension. Culture is not different, and the tensions can help
us to understand how cultures respond and evolve and how we might be able to predict and even shape those responses.
To make this real... one of the areas of cultural tension starts with vision setting. Organisations often construct it, communicate it and then very often launch a new culture alongside! A framework, behaviours, posters, presentations and suddenly gone with the old, in with the new! Then we attempt to drive this through the organisation, embed, reinforce, integrate – on track, single minded and resolute. It’s not hard to see the inherent tension in this approach. Culture is not a static but a complex myriad of behaviours, emerging, merging, like a whirlpool which surfaces new delights every time it churns and turns.
Getting the right balance in this tension requires organisations giving people the reassurance of a vision, something that is to be aspired and aimed for – then show how the journey to it must be flexed, and aspects of culture leaned into to achieve the right result in the right moment.
In flexing the journey, we must keep people engaged and motivated, particularly in challenging economic or operational contexts, or with rapid growth strategies and ambitious targets. We must corral everyone’s focus around implementing this strategy with conviction. At the same time, though, we must also maintain an aspect of productive paranoia, questioning whether we’re still on the right track, whether our strategy is still the best one, given inevitable changes in the external environment. But this is a fine balance; we must have healthy questioning, whilst simultaneously pressing forwards, with gusto! It’s clear to see how these tensions represent the most fundamental balances that leaders must deal with, on a continual basis, knowing when to shift emphasis from one side (e.g. questioning) to the other (e.g. committing to action, at pace).
We also see tension creating friction and potential confusion in relation to innovation (big and small). An organisation may call for creativity and experimentation, even embed it in cultural expectations, but tension may be inherent in the tipping point from experimentation and implementation. At what point do we stop experimenting and just do it, or even kill it as an idea that is not viable, scalable, or desirable? At what point do you lean towards generating ideas versus just doing it?
In support not only of innovation, but also effective performance more broadly, is acting on the basis of a solid understanding of your key stakeholders – internal and external. This requires good data, but also going beyond the data to the level of enlightened empathy, ensuring that you really understand what your employees, customers, and other key audiences feel, want, need, and expect. But an effective leader knows when they need to take a leap of faith – whether this is launching a new product that the market doesn’t know they need yet, or taking a risk on a team member by stretching them out of their comfort zone to reach their potential. It’s about using the data that’s available, but applying your expertise, intuition and foresight to take that step into unchartered and unproven territory, to make a leap forwards.
All of this is enabled by a foundation of diversity and inclusivity, because in an unpredictable, changing operating context, we all need the metaphorical equivalent of the Swiss army knife in our toolbox. This reduces blind spots to enhance readiness and enhances agility, enabling an organisation to deal with whatever unpredictable challenges are thrown at it. But diversity must be balanced with unified alignment – where is it
important that we converge, to ensure we’re moving in the same direction with cohesion?
If you operate from the stance of culture as a static, something you can articulate and in doing so freeze in time, then the risk is that you overlook the nuances, the situational lean ins, and the energy that needs to be harnessed to create change. Such a stance also assumes that culture exists in a world of enough time, resource and everybody falling into line! The reality is that organisations want to achieve more, with less, increase pace,
yet get buy-in, accelerate growth yet protect quality and compliance.
Each of these are real and tangible tensions and which side of each tension organisations lean towards and when, must be the starting point to understand the growing, changing, shifting microcosm that is organisational culture.
To find out more, download our brand-new eBook 'Culture at Breaking Point'.
