Work Culture: Rise Above the Hype

Fundamentals of Company Culture.

I was in my late teens and fortunate enough to experience the birth of a new cultural phenomenon—health and fitness club culture.

This was the high-energy, parachute-panted, phosphorescent 80s.

My role as a young, ambitious, somewhat naive consultant launched me into a trailblazing two-part mission of international proportions.

The first part involved crisscrossing the UK and North America, gathering data from hundreds of conversations to define a mindset that made connecting people to a health and fitness lifestyle and community easier.

For the second part, my task was to design and build a blueprint for a health club culture capable of nurturing this mindset.

By 1990, I had accomplished both parts of my mission.

Fast forward to 2021.

During a pilot of my latest venture, the foflo team connectivity tool, Andrew Haines, the CEO of Network Rail, commented on the remarkable level of team cohesion and palpable purpose-driven project culture.

The project team pointed to foflo as the catalyst (and culprit).

Until then, we hadn't considered foflo a cultural tool. So on recommendation, we took a step back to look objectively at what we had created.

I realised the culture fundamentals discovered in the 80s had stuck with me and now underpinned the foflo tool.

We then explored the culture software platform marketplace to see if foflo had any right to live there.

We were surprised to see that popular culture platforms were missing many of the foflo culture fundamentals.

From our perspective, these missing fundamentals demonstrated why today's culture platforms fail to build and maintain high-performing cultures for their customers.

Moving Beyond the Hype

Take a moment to search Google for 'role of company culture'. When you do, nothing will prepare you for the deluge of articles that soapbox company culture as a major factor in company performance, trumpeting a narrative that suffers at the hand of abstraction, and concluding with ways to right any wrongs with your own culture.

These narratives inspire a verbal vortex, spinning a complex web of rational and irrational thoughts that often fail to connect and result in an unquenched cultural curiosity.

Little wonder that company culture has become more 'metaphor than means'.

It would be comical if it didn't impact real people's lives so much.

Below are two simple truths.

The first. Company culture controls the quality of contribution.

The second. Company culture forms the building blocks of performance.

In short, culture (really) is the life force of an organisation.

Organisations seeking to improve work culture often turn to popular culture platforms to boost this life force. When they do, they assume these platforms will deliver what their companies and their people need.

They won't and don't.

Organisations assume the builders of culture tools and platforms will ensure their offerings deliver the best possible outcome for their customers.

If only this were the case.

Platform creators make a lot of assumptions. Some of these assumptions restrict their ability to build and maintain great cultures.

This is terrible news for organisations, their employees and their customers.

Go back to Google and type 'challenges employees face in the workplace'. Believe what you read, and then some.

Their suffering is genuine and not nearly improving.

Below I have listed assumptions culture platform builders often make. These assumptions conflict with my culture fundamentals.

When we designed and built the foflo platform, we challenged every assumption. And always will.

I have included my response to each assumption as viewed through a polished lens of common sense.

Assumption 1

Prioritise employee engagement above all else. A better way is to prioritise employee contribution above all else.

Assumption 2

Capture and analyse feedback on culture a few times each year. A better way is to see a culture in action as it happens. What's working and what's not.

Assumption 3

Concentrate on providing employees with great culture-building experiences. A better way is to concentrate on delivering a great culture, where great experiences result from a great culture.

Assumption 4

Employees don't need to know how and why a culture platform works. A better way is to respect that employee support is determined by how much they do know.

Assumption 5

Build the platform value proposition for a decision-maker audience. A better way is to build the value proposition for an employee and user audience.

Assumption 6

Employees will give their support willingly, with few questions asked. A better way is to know employees need great reasons to give their full support.

Assumption 7

Culture tools must be sophisticated or immersive, or both. A better way is to know that culture tools must be simple and one-dimensional.

Assumption 8

Culture change must focus on one employee at a time. A better way is to focus on the whole workforce at once.

Epilogue

More than anything, employees want the opportunity to be their best selves in pursuit of common goals.

At the time of writing this article, foflo is the only means of achieving this.

The bare truth is that company culture is out of control.

Employee performance trajectory is heading in the wrong direction and with sufficient momentum to keep going.

You may instinctively feel this already.

Though now you can do something about it.

What you do will affect the working lives of everyone within your organisation now and in the future.

Whatever you decide to do, don't ignore the signs.

Chris@foflo.app