Turning Up The Heat On Toxic Culture

Three things you can do right now to improve organisational culture. One of the irritating things about good culture is that it’s difficult to achieve. Uniting everyone around a common mission is no mean feat. There’s lots to stand in its way – much of it related to human nature. As a founder and leader of ad industry businesses,a sector with a reputation for toxic culture, I have a long-term interest in working out ways todissipate the heat. Here’s my top three.

1 VALUES OUTING

Much has been said about the first step to shape good culture; take a values-first approach to your recruitment; a signpost to all that there’s a defined, identifiable culture. Equally, you’ll find swathes of expert opinion telling you that all decisions taken daily in your business should be guided by your values and mission. Assuming that your leadership team actually live and breathe both, I’m thinking here of the recent Brewdog debacle, then what about your people? How can you be sure those you bring in are down with your vision? After all, it’s difficult to really know if the person who turns up to do the job is the same person who turned up for the interviews.

One way to aid your judgement is values outing. Ask your candidates to metaphorically rip up their CV and get them to think about their career achievements in a different way; to show you how they have lived your organisation’s values by reworking and categorising the structure of their CV using each of your values as a heading.

The foreword to a fascinating survey of the value of values in business by the consultancy firm Maitland* asked how many CEOs could honestly say the values they so lovingly crafted were fully lived within their organisation. A values-outing exercise will crystalise your culture in the minds of your people on day one of their journey.

2 DO AN EQUALITY AUDIT

Workplace inequality – there’s a lot of it about. Any self-respecting entrepreneur needs to be aware to their own unconscious biases that can cause the flawed decision making leading to inequality and a toxic culture.