Internal culture is defined as – how you do what you do, via formal systems and informal behaviours, in the workplace – by prominent thinker Julian Lute.
At a fast-paced start-up, such as Culture15, the importance of getting things done and driving growth is paramount, and therefore the behaviours and systems that deliver this growth are crucial. How can an organisation, such as Culture15 expect to achieve its goals if it doesn’t prioritise an internal culture that is conducive of them?
The behaviours that shape our internal culture
Culture15 seeks to cultivate an internal culture which nurtures those behaviours that are aligned with our strategic goals and discourages those that are not. We do, we work, we pioneer, we partner and we bounce, articulate how work gets done at Culture15.
We Do – meaning that we place emphasis on execution, are solution-focused and prioritise getting stuff done with speed and effectiveness.
We Work – indicating that we work hard as a team, and only succeed collectively. We thrive on challenge and new ways of thinking, without fear of judgement or failure.
We Pioneer – emphasising that we are breaking new ground in how we think about and measure culture. We are unapologetic in taking a different stance and aim to reshape how culture is managed in the workplace.
We Partner – in every aspect our clients and partners are always front of mind, and we strive to continuously deliver value in everything we do.
We Bounce – we ‘bounce’ embodies the sense of energy, flexibility, innovation and fun that the team at Culture15 epitomise. The very nature of Culture15 as a startup is to bounce ideas off each other and encourage continuous growth and learning.
The repetition and use of “we” reinforces our core belief, that culture should always be defined as collective behaviours.
Measuring and managing our internal culture
At Culture15, every member of the team is responsible for maintaining our internal culture, by encouraging the behaviours we defined above as desirable. Culture should be a shared responsibility in the workplace, in the hands of many, not the few. As such, all employees at Culture15 are fully informed and have a clear and indistinguishable understanding of our desired culture.
For example, to encourage behaviours akin to our desired culture, our team regularly facilitate, what we call “lunchtime learning”, where we encourage knowledge sharing, education and informal discussion during our day to challenge our ways of thinking, without fear of judgement. This initiative helps us manage our internal culture and reinforce that we pioneer and we work. This initiative also ensures that our team are fully informed and aligned in order to effectively pioneer new ways of thinking within our industry.
Periodically, we utilise our own culture measurement platform to rigorously measure our current culture, and identify any gaps between the existing and desired behaviours at play within Culture15. This insight then enables us to identify, observe, and work to close any culture gaps that may appear. As our startup shifts and transforms, like any growing business, culture gaps may occur, but our measurement platform enables us to be ahead of the curve and fully aware of culture shifts within our organisation. We know that it is crucial to re-visit our culture definitions regularly and re-educate our team on our desired behaviour set if needed. This level of transparency and authenticity is crucial to establishing trust which is essential for productivity, collaboration and cultivation of culture-led strategy.
Our teams individual values are aligned with the business purpose
As previously mentioned within our account executive, Bradley’s blog on Culture by Design, it is crucial that employees’ individual values align with the company-wide purpose. This is because a team with a shared vision promotes coherence, collaboration, and unity.
At Culture15, we are passionate about pioneering a new way of measuring culture, and as such, our team is comprised of culture consultants, a keen anthropologist and several graduates who have compiled research studies on organisational, societal and internal culture. We strongly believe that having a team that is genuinely passionate and aligned with the mission of our start up is key to our success.
To Summarise
At Culture15 we utilise our own SaaS platform to measure our internal culture, defined clearly as the behaviours that show up as work gets done. The framework that our culture measurement platform provides, enables us to articulate and understand our internal culture, which many organisations still regard as an intangible concept. We use the insight from our platform to manage our internal culture and ensure we are in pursuit of our desired culture, through initiatives such as lunchtime learning, which supports growth.
In conclusion, we highlight that for an organisation to succeed it should ensure its employees are aligned with the vision and mission of the organisation. To do this, transparency, and a clearly defined internal culture are the two necessary ingredients.
Image credit: Austin Distel
Culture15 is your complete toolkit for tracking culture change. CEOs and Exec Teams at world-leading organisations use Culture15 analytics to ensure success by aligning their culture with what they need to execute their strategy. If you’d like to find out how to define the culture you need, diagnose the culture you have and close the gap, talk to our team.
