Positively impacting society on a global scale through culture awareness, education and action.

“We don’t have time for the soft stuff” was recently heard in a senior leadership meeting. “Let’s get back to the real work—our budget and strategy for next year.” This team had just been through a training workshop that focused on leadership styles, their impact on the workforce, and the need to shift their behaviors toward more openness and collaboration. Comments on the “soft stuff” have been around for some time. It’s amazing in this time of work complexity, ambiguity, vulnerability, and interdependence, that some leadership still undervalue the importance of the human side of enterprise.

Research shows that organizations with high performance over a sustained period of time achieve their success because their people are coming to work each day to do more than punch the clock. Organizations are great not just because a leader is doing something great, organizations are great because lots of people are going above and beyond their job description and making a difference every day.

This is the 100^th post on Culture University and it’s only fitting I summarize 100 of the top culture insights shared by the outstanding line-up of culture expert and guest authors over the last two years.  The purpose of CultureU is to positively impact society on a global scale through culture awareness, education and action.

We’re making progress bringing visibility to culture facts and fundamentals that go beyond all the superficial and over-simplified culture content. These insights barely touch the surface of the important subject of culture but hopefully it will spark your interest to learn more.

I continue to learn at a fast rate from the CultureU faculty and guests. You may download the complete list of Top 100 Culture Insights at this link.

Here are 15 that stood out to me personally.

No matter how you define workplace culture there’s no denying that relationship dynamics play a primary role in how we do things and how we get along.

The most influential relationship in the workplace is the boss-employee relationship, and because of this even departmental leaders and middle managers can influence and dramatically shift culture in their own area of control, whether it be in a franchise, a small business or the department of a global company.

During my 15 years as an executive for the YMCA, one of the globe’s largest non-profits now branded as The Y, I heard these words from a teenager about to climb a rock wall – on belay, but nervous about the task before her. I heard these words from an adult volunteer who has signed on for the first time to help with the branch’s annual fundraising. Her $5,000 goal during the three week campaign was pretty intimidating. I heard these words from a high school junior who was minutes away from running his first committee session in the Model Legislature and Court, even after weeks of training and practice.

When you build a culture of innovation, who benefits? From my work with organisations I’d be fairly willing to bet that your top answers would include customers, employees and the organisation itself.

And it’s fairly obvious why. Customers of innovative organisations receive the benefit of agile solutions which are created in answer to real needs and delivered by exceptional levels of service. Employees working within innovative organisations benefit from working in a collaborative environment which praises and nurtures traits such as empowerment initiative and inclusivity. And innovative organisations benefit from offering differentiated market leading solutions; thereby attracting a loyal customer base, a strong reputation, and increased levels of profitability.

Most leaders know that culture matters.  But, did you know that the narrower the culture gap (the difference between current and preferred cultures) the more likely it is that high potential employees will stay?

According to recent research by The Catalyst Center for Career Pathways, the narrower the culture gap, the more satisfied high potentials are with their work and advancement, pay, managers, and organizational commitment to work-life quality and diversity.  “A narrower culture gap and greater employee satisfaction combine to predict high potentials’ intention to stay,” according to Catalyst.  The report continues, “Women and men high potentials agree on workplace culture: Both would prefer to work in cultures that are more constructive and less aggressive.  Both agree that the biggest gap in their workplace cultures is that they are not constructive enough.”

Grâce cette publication, vous pourrez accélérer le changement de votre culture organisationnelle. Chaque leader comprendra ici les bénéfices des réflexions critiques sur la culture ainsi que la résolution de problèmes, le changement, l’engagement, la stratégie, le recrutement et le consulting avec Edgar Schein, Professeur Émérite au MIT Sloan School of Management et personnalité la plus influente dans le domaine de la culture.

My consulting journey came from over 20 years of experience working at a fortune 100 company, but not as an executive in a corporate office, not as a business unit manager, not in marketing, and not in human resources. Instead, I was a blue-collar line worker in a food processing plant, doing everything from packing product, stacking skids, driving a forklift and tearing down equipment for sanitation on Friday nights.

CultureUniversity.com is the premier workplace culture educational blog with a mission of positively impacting society on a global scale through workplace culture awareness, education, and action.

The following posts had the highest traffic on CultureU in 2015.

One of the unfortunate consequences of leadership churn, mergers and acquisitions and failed projects is that they leave behind remnants of cultures past. These ghosts of the past can come back to haunt culture change initiatives and current change projects.

This is the fifth in a series of blogs about virtuous organizations — businesses where employees model the highest aspirations of human kind. In this series, authors Graham Williams and Gerald Wagner draw on examples and insights from around the world — Brazil, USA, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey. Readers may be pleasantly surprised by how many virtuous companies already exist! The series addresses what makes these virtuous organizations tick and what practices they have in common, telling compelling stories about the power of positivity. While everyone is likely to enjoy these case studies, organizational leaders in a position to affect culture change are likely to benefit most.

This is the fourth in a series of blogs about virtuous organizations — businesses where employees model the highest aspirations of human kind. In this series, authors Graham Williams and Gerald Wagner draw on examples and insights from around the world — Brazil, USA, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey. Readers may be pleasantly surprised by how many virtuous companies already exist! The series addresses what makes these virtuous organizations tick and what practices they have in common, telling compelling stories about the power of positivity. While everyone is likely to enjoy these case studies, organizational leaders in a position to affect culture change are likely to benefit most.

Have you ever been a part of a company merger, where your company acquired a competitor or your organization was acquired by another one? If so, you probably experienced the difficulty of such mergers or acquisitions to generate positive value for shareholders, owners, and employees.

This is the third in a series of blogs about virtuous organizations — businesses where employees model the highest aspirations of human kind. In this series, authors Graham Williams and Gerald Wagner draw on examples and insights from around the world — Brazil, USA, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey. Readers may be pleasantly surprised by how many virtuous companies already exist! The series addresses what makes these virtuous organizations tick and what practices they have in common, telling compelling stories about the power of positivity. While everyone is likely to enjoy these case studies, organizational leaders in a position to affect culture change are likely to benefit most.