Your culture can be your greatest asset or greatest liability.

We know culture is important. Sixty-seven per cent of respondents in PwC’s 2021 Global Culture Survey considered culture more critical for success than strategy or operating model, and 81% attributed culture as a point of competitive advantage.

We know culture can be changed on purpose. PwC’s survey found that a staggering 80% of team members are disappointed with their organisation’s culture, 76% of leaders believe culture is changeable, and 65% of leaders believe they need to change their current culture. Yet only 15% of organisations report culture transformation programs as successful.

So, if we believe that culture is important and can be changed, why aren't more of us working on our culture?

Didier Elzinga, founder and CEO of Culture Amp, believes that to succeed, you must put culture first. Culture Amp’s mission is to grow Culture First companies. He says, ‘Brand is a promise to a customer; culture is how you deliver that promise.’ Elzinga isn’t saying purpose or profits don’t matter, but rather that culture is the means to success. 

Long before Richard Branson made it famous, JW Marriott’s Washington DC root beer stall in the 1920s had the motto, ‘Take care of your people and they will take care of your customers’. 

While most leaders know culture is important, many don’t feel confident changing it. There are some simple steps you can take. The first step is to identify the opportunity.

Some questions for you to reflect on:

1. Is your culture working for you or against you? How do you know?
2. Do you know how to change the culture in your team? Where would you start?
3. What would it look like if your culture was working for you?

Try This Experiment

Use music to shift the vibe in your team. Collate a team playlist and play music from it when you gather in person or online. Celebrate success with a victory dance. Play an upbeat song and get everyone up and dancing for two minutes to celebrate together. It’s a quick energiser and breaks up the day. It also provides plenty to bond over.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear how your experiments using music to shift the vibe works.