Top Five Culture Posts of 2017 on CultureUniversity.com

Top 5 Culture Posts of 2017

The interest in culture continues to grow but this growth comes with a proliferation of over-simplified and incorrect information about culture and culture change. Culture University was launched in 2014 to cut through this misinformation and it’s grown to be a great resource for leaders and change agents (this is post #191).

Five new posts garnered the highest traffic in 2017 and my personal top insight from each post is captured in the list below.

#5 – Creating a World-Class Onboarding Program Aligned with Your Culture

By Chris Williams

This post featured a startling statistic: 33% of new hires look for a new job in the first six months.

I enjoyed the seven tips for creating a world-class onboarding program: immerse them in your culture, design the onboarding experience backwards, pace and sequence onboarding over time, give them the puzzle box top (the big picture/context), show them how they connect to your strategy, tool up your managers, and show them their development roadmap.

Creating a World-Class Onboarding Program

#4 – Changing the Culture of Government and Beyond

By Tim Kuppler

I wrote this post when the debate about the federal government transition in the United States was at an all-time high. Little did I know that debate would only grow.

It’s unlikely these approaches will be applied on a large scale in the short-term but that was explained in the article. We are seeing courageous and visionary leaders in some federal, state and local government agencies applying these common-sense approaches and seeing positive results in a short period of time.

Changing the Culture of Government

#3 – To Drive Culture Change Identify a Critical Few Behaviors

By Kristy Hull

I love it when a post zeroes in on a specific culture fundamental that is not widely understood.

The fundamental in this case is the need to focus on a “critical few” behaviors. This has been advocated by many culture experts and pioneers but it’s surprising how rare it is for change efforts to include this focus. The Harvard Business Review published a very detailed article on culture this month but this important insight is totally missing (along with many others) as they cover another culture framework and over-simplified advice.

I also liked the behavior prioritization framework in this CultureU post (see below).

To Drive Culture Change Identify Critical Behaviors

#2 – Closing the Massive Gaps Between Culture Awareness, Education and Action

By Tim Kuppler

“It’s time to turn the culture world upside down and explode many incorrect notions that are preventing meaningful culture change for organizations and society.”

In this post, I cover a detailed summary of the current state of culture in most organizations, the three major types of culture-related improvement efforts, and proven approaches to close the five major gaps that exist between the current and potential future state of culture in most organizations.

Closing Gaps Between Culture Awareness and Action 

#1 – How to Accelerate Culture Change Across the Organization

By Jerome Parisse-Brassens

I love the concept of “accelerating culture change.”

The post also includes an excellent summary of potential groups to consider in your culture change acceleration strategy: leadership cohort, culture champions, connectors, influencers, customers and external stakeholders, the board, and people open to change. I also liked the research about when “10% of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.” I have heard of numbers as low as 3% being a tipping point for meaningful change.

How to Accelerate Culture Change

Thank You and the future

Thank you to all the contributing authors. CultureU wouldn’t exist without your interest in sharing what you have learned. Thank you to Human Synergistics for continuing to support post administration and, specifically, Kalani Iwi’ula for his excellent blog oversight and Jason Bowes for creating the image-quotes.

CultureU continues to be part of a movement to change the way the world thinks about culture and culture change. If you are interested in being part of this journey and contributing a post to CultureU, see our guest post guideline. One final thank you goes to all of our readers. Your feedback, questions, ideas, and sharing of content on social media are a major part of the journey.

Watch for some exciting announcements in 2018 regarding Culture University and the Human Synergistics Constructive Culture blog, and sign up to receive the high-quality culture educational content.


About the Author

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Tim Kuppler

Faculty Tim Kuppler is the founder of Culture University and former Director of Culture and Organization Development for Human Synergistics, a 40+ year pioneer in the workplace culture field where he led collaboration and partnering efforts with culture experts, consulting firms, industry organizations and other groups interested in making a meaningful difference in their organization, those they support, and, ultimately, society. Currently with the Compass culture division of the staffing powerhouse, Insight Global, Tim authored Build the Culture Advantage, Deliver Sustainable Performance with Clarity and Speed, which was endorsed as the "go-to" resource for building a performance culture. He previously led major culture transformations as a senior executive with case studies featured as part of the 2012 best-selling book – Leading Culture Change in Global Organizations. He was also President of Denison Consulting, a culture assessment and consulting firm and is an accomplished speaker and recognized as a Top 100 leadership conferences speaker on Inc.com. Tim's 20 years of culture and performance improvement experience includes the rare mix of executive leadership, coaching, and consulting knowledge necessary to help leaders quickly improve team effectiveness and results as they focus on their top performance priorities, challenges, and/or goals. He networks extensively in the workplace culture field in order to learn and apply the latest insights from many experts.