Culture Hypocrisy: The Death of Culture
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The ultimate kiss of death to company culture: Culture Hypocrisy. If anyone in an organization is exempt from having to act in alignment with the values and behaviors outlined in their culture, then no one will buy into it. And why would they?
It doesn’t matter how long the offending characters have been there or what their position is. Regardless of whether they’re the founder, a leader, or long time employee, allowing anyone to be able to show up and behave poorly, with no accountability or repercussion, is the death of culture.
If you allow this, your employees will see your culture for exactly what it is — a device to keep them in line and lip service to be used for cheesy, feel-good internal or external marketing collateral. More specifically: a joke.
“Don’t expect employees to buy into culture if leaders and execs can show up like assholes. It applies to everyone, or it’s a joke. ”
Teams that are serious about having conversations around culture need to be honest about their commitment to it. The very first question to ask is “Do we mean this, or is this just for show? Are these behaviors and expectations absolutely required in order to be here?” If the answer is no, you’re wasting your time.
The value and impact of exceptional culture to the performance of teams, individual engagement, and the bottom line of any organization is massive and also completed negated if it’s approached and executed without integrity.
Finally, download our Strategic Culture Plan. It’s totally free for our subscribers. If you truly want to build an effective company culture this is your ultimate guide.
This content was created by keynote speaker Galen Emanuele for the #shiftyestribe. Free leadership and team culture content centered on a new focus every month. Subscribe to the Shift Yes Tribe at shiftyes.com