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

The following opinion is an extended look into “The Force Multiplier Theory.” It’s a concept I’ll introduce below, and it’s one we routinely use in helping organizations, teams, and leaders to understand the role of culture in organizational performance and effectiveness.

The overarching idea isn’t rocket science. Seemingly, whenever we share this perspective with people they always nod their heads in agreement and say, “absolutely,” or “we really need that.” Yet, as basic as the idea might seem, we still see organizations struggle with this concept and fail to invest in it, or not to its full potential.

This post is the fourth in a series of five articles describing a major arts-based leadership development programme at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, designed and run over a four-year period by Dr. Mark Powell, one of the authors of this article. The aim was to create a new culture of ‘open mindedness’ among the senior project managers of a UK oil and gas exploration company, encouraging them to interact more effectively with the other stakeholders in their capital projects and enhancing their ability to improvise in the face of rapidly changing situations.

The articles and expertise found here on Culture University and Constructive Culture provide a fantastic foundation for a leader to learn how a purposeful, positive, productive culture operates. From making values as important as results to creating an organizational constitution to evaluating climate and relationships—that critical information is readily available.

The tough part isn’t gaining the knowledge about creating a healthy work culture. The tough part is implementing these practices and maintaining that healthy culture, every interaction, every day.

Are we losing the art of conversation?

In an age where digital monologues, selfies, and superficial chats are the norm, the power of conversation is waning. Disconnected in our connected world, text, email, and social media exchanges are hardly interactive, let alone conversational.

TV, live-streamed and public-event ‘conversations,’ from political debates to discussion groups, tend to be immature, combative and divisive because there is something to ‘win,’ and because there is an ‘entertainment value’ to be optimised.

The interest in culture continues to grow but this growth comes with a proliferation in over-simplified and incorrect information about culture and culture change. CultureUniversity.com launched in 2014 to cut through this misinformation and it has grown to be a great resource for leaders and change agents to learn about organizational culture. Over 30 organizational culture enthusiasts and experts shared their insights in 2016.

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

Neuroscience has become a rising star in the sky of management theory. The notion or conviction that we can improve behavior and interaction in the workplace to enhance performance, innovation and health by understanding how our brain—the organ that is most involved in determining our behavior—works is on the rise.

This post is the third in a series of five articles describing a major arts-based leadership development programme at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, designed and run over a four-year period by Dr. Mark Powell, one of the authors of this article. In the program, which was conducted on behalf of a major oil and gas exploration company, senior project managers worked closely with a wide variety of artists: jazz musicians, actors, painters, storytellers, dancers, conductors and others. The aim was to create a new culture of ‘open mindedness’ in the project managers, encouraging them to interact effectively with the other stakeholders involved in major projects, and enhancing their ability to ‘improvise’ – to react quickly and effectively to changing circumstances.

In San Francisco, a private high school challenged its Seniors to go without their digital devices for a week. Phones were collected and off the students went into their own private purgatories. How long could they last? The Principal thought it would not be long. He saw their humanity slipping away into digital space.

Speed and urgency, although necessary attributes of leadership, are not sufficient to successfully lead a team. In fact, our research suggests that leaders who can tether an obsession with deadlines and time to an ability to sense the work and energy flow of their colleagues will have the most success.

In an earlier post, we gave a very brief account of a major arts-based leadership development programme at Oxford University’s School of Business, designed to create new behaviors in a group of senior project managers in the oil and gas exploration industry. The aim was to create a new culture of ‘open-mindedness’: the ability to form more effective working relationships with the other stakeholders involved in major capital projects and an increased ability to ‘improvise’ – to react quickly and effectively to rapidly changing situations.

I recently attended Human Synergistics’ 2^nd Annual Ultimate Culture Conference in San Francisco. The presenters were professors, HR leaders, OD consultants, as well as CEOs and operating leaders.

Corporate culture was presented and discussed from all angles: What it is, how to measure it, how to change it, how to keep it aligned, whether you are in a start-up, in high-growth mode, or retrenching.

As people across the world watch the 2016 United States presidential campaign, they witness the division and ultimately a culture change evolving in our nation.

We have more choices to express our opinions, but less tolerance for the opinions of others. We have more passion, but less compassion. We have more speed, but less self-control. We want even more freedoms but are unwilling to take responsibility.

Purpose. It’s a trending topic for businesses today. A quick Google search of the phrase “company + purpose” produces a whopping 1,030,000,000 hits. Harvard Business Review has published literally dozens of articles on the subject in the past 12 months alone. And leaders across the country – and the world – are paying attention; working to figure out what role purpose should play in their organizations and in their cultures, because this topic is becoming increasingly near and dear to their employees’ and customers’ hearts.

In 2011, a major oil and gas exploration company based in the UK set out on an extraordinary, arts-based leadership development programme at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, designed and led by Dr. Mark Powell, one of the authors of this article. The company’s senior project managers are responsible for multi-million-dollar exploration projects around the world and the programme was designed, not to give these senior managers enhanced skillsets or new theoretical frameworks, but to change their behaviors and mindsets — to change their culture.

Innovation continues to be a hot topic. The Boston Consulting Group’s 10^th annual global survey of the state of innovation shows that 79 percent of respondents ranked it as the company’s top-most priority or a top-three priority—the highest percent since the survey began in 2005. Whether in business, non-profit, sports, or entertainment, most organizations are continuously asking the question, “How can we become more innovative?” Leaders have quickly recognized that their organization’s competitive position largely depends on its capacity for innovation.