How business leaders align and build a culture of value

You know how the foundations of a property play a significant part in the stability and value in a home. Well, it’s the same with culture and the potential value in business. Businesses with poor foundations, like with real estate, risk the same fate as a floating house. The good thing is that, unlike a wobbly abode, you don’t necessarily need to demolish or tear anything down in order to sort it out.

History teaches plenty 

Sapiens have been around some 70,000 years (almost 19,000 generations). There are now 196 recognised countries, each a sort of tribe, and thousands more unique cultures. In order to consciously build your culture, learn to use some of the same foundational concepts that bond an ethnological tribe.

Leonardo Da Vinci taught us that as much as knowing our strengths, it was also realising one’s flaws was a part of individual performance. Well, here we can swing back to the collective polar opposite again as Tribes are often known for particular collective strengths. When it comes to the culture within an organisation, we often see the high performers put on the podium, yet the strength of the culture isn’t only about the top gun or top star.

Collective culture strengths  

A great example is our melting pot, modern day Australian culture: respectfully, different, not to be confused with the culture of traditional First Nations people.

Australia is frequently seen as a sporting nation punching well above its weight. So much so we feel sad or let down should our swimmers, cricketers or rugby players lapse and fall prey to other nations or sides. The traditional landowners have a collective strength understanding, respecting and working with the elements and forces of nature in this wondrous land.

The commonality to apply is to identify what exactly are the strengths of your tribe? And you’ve got to think behind the flashy surface level, instead identify the actual skills, articulate them, fly a flag for them, pass them on and wear those strengths in market with pride.

Create your traditions  

When you think about enduring cultures or elements of culture the simple concept of traditions is another not to be ignored. There are four primary categories when it comes to traditions. Common across the globe yet their manner is also tailored for each tribe.

We create traditions to celebrate. Think about birthdays. The candles on the birthday cake may have been adopted from Ancient Greece. The round cake representing the moon, for the Goddess Artemis, candles and smoke a mechanism to send her your prayers. You can celebrate annual birthdays of the office as well as individual team members, or even set client based annual traditions to remind of the day they moved in that home.

We have traditions to rejuvenate.  New Years Eve fireworks display’s set light to night skies around the globe. Being Scottish, so perhaps a little bias, the fact that we even give this rejuvenation a special name, Hogmanay, makes it stand out. Even having its own mini traditions. First footing is perhaps most well-known. Being first across house thresholds after clock has struck twelve bearing gifts: such as whisky or shortbread to symoblise prosperity (well that’s what we say anyway) or a lump of coal representing warmth.

Who doesn’t love a good tradition to honour. Weddings are a lovely example. Yet how much different culturally can they be. I must confess I love a good Indian wedding, where multiple traditions play out over days or even weeks.

The colour of dhotis and saris is significant in contrast to the more Westernised suit and tie, or top hat and tails. The banquets too and number of wedding guests. Those distant third cousins you speak to once in a blue moon in Sydney that are a soft question mark would be a certainty in Mumbai.

So, with your top honours and annual awards. Perhaps think about how you may do it slightly differently so honoring your top performers in your style stands out from the black dress or suit and tie hordes.

The fourth is perhaps emotionally the toughest yet somehow the Irish turn a tradition of mourning into a celebratory shindig and wake.

You can take these same four concepts and build your own traditions, relative to your own tribe. And in a way that encourages longevity and continuity. The one often swept under the rug is that tricky one of mourning which is so often swept aside.

Learning and legends 

A final thought to ponder would be the fact that every culture creates continuity via two simple mechanisms. Passing on essential knowledge and the creation of legends: both of which ignite inspiration far and wide. There’s a real opportunity with those top performers in your business.

Yes, you want to them to keep hitting their results. Simultaneously to help them discover that fulfilment comes not only from their own achievements. Therefore, learning to harness some of their industry or skill knowledge, extrapolate it, and spread it amongst the team, needs to be encouraged.

In this digital age both are far more accessible and easier to spread.  In fact, if anything, perhaps a little classical culture snobbery is required.  Better filtering of knowledge and be a little more selective with who is put on that podium as heroic. Those two things alone might serve to ensure the real quality standards in your foundations are held to the highest standard amongst your whole tribe.

Written by Mark Carter.
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