Think community, not culture

Ownership. Empathy. Curiosity. Efficiency. Customer-centric. Stewardship. Integrity. Passion. Collaboration. Kindness. Accountability. Excellence. Courage. Teamwork. Honesty. Respect. Humility. More likely than not, you’ve come across at least one of the above words, probably more, as among those emblazoned on the office walls and company website and called ‘our cultural values’. I’ve witnessed firsthand the time and energy leaders and teams spend in determining which words should go on the wall, and, how exactly these words should be defined. Great organisations may also spend time helping their teams and managers understand how they can build these new cultural values into their day-to-day work. There’s much fanfare as the new or refreshed cultural values are rolled out to the rest of the organisation. There’s no doubt that people know a good culture when they experience it, but something always falls short in the exercise of defining cultural values. Culture becomes just words on a page. And, worse, sometimes these words that are imprinted on our swag and talked about at our town halls bear no relation to the organisational culture as people within the organisation actually experience it. I’m not saying that values aren’t important. Along with purpose and mission, agreed values create strong guardrails for decision-making and help shape an individual’s behaviour. For example, during times of crisis and change, values can prompt you to think before proceeding (‘Does this new product really put our customers front and centre?’ ‘How does this performance review process encourage courage in giving feedback?’) But are values the best way to build and nurture culture? I would like to propose a different way of thinking about culture – one that I think will resonate with you as a chief of staff. Don’t focus on culture, focus on building a great community.

Think about the best communities you’ve ever been a part of – a college sports team, a church, a neighbourhood, an alumni group, the Chief of Staff Association (!). When you’re part of a great community, you feel a strong sense of belonging; you care deeply about the other members of the community; and you also have a set of shared values, even if they are unspoken. You give back to your community and focus on ways to make the community grow. You relish being part of it, not just understanding or abiding by it. And if you start replacing ‘culture’ with ‘community’ in discussions about internal processes, initiatives, or activities some very interesting things start to happen. For example, take the onboarding process for new employees. A clear, structured, onboarding process is a core part of an organisation’s culture and important for the success of an individual. It starts to socialise them into the company and explains ‘how we do things around here’. But you don’t onboard someone into a community, you welcome them. So, what can you add to your onboarding process to make it a welcoming process? What may be even more interesting and useful to the chief of staff, however, is the notion that, while communities can develop hierarchies, they are based on different criteria from those that inform organisational hierarchies. Typically, what gives someone influence in a community is the commitment and the extent to which they embody community values or spirit. So someone may not have a formal leadership role or manage a team, but because they play an important role in the organisational community, they can be highly influential. A successful chief of staff will know who these people are and bring them on board to support strategic initiatives or change. The sociologist Robert Putnam warns that the demise of community social structures in the United States has contributed to the demise of democracy. We long for connection, but have fewer avenues to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. For many of us, the closest we have to a true community is our workplace. We might say that we stay at a company because we love the culture – but what we really love are the people who surround us. That’s the power of community.