12 Aug A few examples of positive organisational culture
I wrote this piece for my LinkedIn community but I hope there are also some here who’d appreciate these ideas. And even if you’re not working in a traditional business or corporate set up, these same principles could be applied to your home life, your family or even other areas of your day to day life. So, here we go …
I’ve worked with countless teams and organisations over the last few decades, helping them navigate difficult times, collaborate better as teams, boost positivity and help them work towards other meaningful and important goals.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s NOT just one thing that works!
Every team member and every team and every organisation is different. Which means we all need to work out our own solutions and strategies.
That being said, there’s no reason we can’t get ideas from others; we can observe what others do, learn from their successes and failures, and adopt that which seems sensible making sure we adapt it to our own circumstances and context.
With this in mind, I thought I’d share with you just a few examples of some of the simple things you might like to consider implementing that might enhance the culture of your team or organisation.
- At batyr, the youth mental health organisation I’ve worked with since they had just 3 staff members through to now when they have about 70 (plus hundreds more casuals and volunteers) … gratitude is shared on a daily basis through a dedicated channel on the Slack communication platform
- At a large insurance company … a “culture club” was set up to meet monthly and review all that was going well and how it could be continued, as well as what wasn’t working or what could be added and then develop appropriate action plans
- At a smaller and newer organisation, the challenge was more about sharing the positive work being done with a broader community and so an “ambassador program” was established and resources developed to help these supporters spread the positivity far and wide
I could go on but the point I wanted to make is that these approaches are all different and they’re also all quite simple. Building a positive organisational culture need not be complex or costly. In fact, it mostly comes down to making it a genuine priority and then focusing on it regularly, as would be done with any other organisational priority.
Start small, be realistic, and make changes as needed. Don’t underestimate where small steps can take you. From little things, big things grow.