Every organization has a culture. It is the way an organization expresses its values. According to Andy Stanley, “Culture shapes the personality of an organization.”
Does your organization’s culture propel your values? Does it muddle them or shut them down all together? Perhaps, you can’t even answer that question.
As a leader, you have to be willing to inspect what you expect (and model that behavior too). If you don’t, you’ll experience vision leaking and culture drifting.
I’m a big fan of Andy Stanley’s monthly leadership podcast. I was especially blown away by the truths expressed in this podcast, Five Inescapable Truths about Culture. I kept finding myself yelling, “right on!”
Here are my notes:
- Leaders shape organizational culture whether they intend to or not.
- A leader’s personality is reflected in his/her organization.
- Time in erodes awareness of.
- The longer you are anywhere, the less aware you are of where you are (but new people recognize it immediately).
- When we see things in our organization that we don’t like, we tend to look out the window, instead of the mirror.
- You have to build into the rhythm of an organization ways to become aware of things you have lost awareness of.
- Healthy cultures attract and keep healthy people.
- Unhealthy people are very comfortable in unhealthy environments.
- Indications of an unhealthy work environment: drama, inward focused individuals, and sideways energy (activity without progress).
- The culture of an organization impacts the long-term productivity of an organization.
- If productivity is important, then culture is important.
- Unhealthy cultures are always slow to adapt to change.
- Unhealthy cultures are more concerned with what’s happening within the organization rather than focused on the marketplace.
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