How to create a good management culture
- the manager as a culture developer
Culture is a driver that unites and clarifies various initiatives and processes in an organization, and often acts as the glue that holds the team together. Leadership culture and related leadership development is therefore based on the ability of leaders to know what culture exists, decide what culture is needed and develop the organization so that it becomes good at working with a culture that is optimal in relation to the strategy. But where should you start?
Why is cultural analysis important?
It is crucial to take a long-term and holistic perspective on culture. Long-term because it takes time to develop culture and attitudes, and holistic because many processes in practice are interlinked. A good place to start is to conduct a cultural analysis," says Gurill Narum Mediaa, Director Innovation & Culture at Culture Intelligence.
"Culture analysis is more important than ever, because understanding and managing culture is more relevant than ever before. Globalization, streamlining, cost cutting, digitalization, restructuring and recruitment create challenges for all types of companies. It has become more important for all businesses to understand who they are, where they are, where they are going strategically and what they need to emphasize more or less."
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Good management culture is crucial
At the same time, managers must focus on how to motivate and engage the company's employees to participate in the achievement of strategic goals. A good management culture is therefore crucial.
"Data is the new gold and a culture analysis gives an organization data on the actual culture that forms the basis of this work".
What culture is the strategy ordering?
Culture is about value choices. When about 50% of our value choices are unconscious, it pays to look at how these affect strategy and vice versa. You could say that company culture is the sum of all the people in the organization's value priorities.
Gurill Narum Mediaa explains that Culture Intelligence's methodology is based on this formula.
"In practice, this means that when a department or all employees have completed a culture analysis, the data set shows which values have been prioritized, and thus the strongest drivers of the company culture. These drivers in turn influence 'this is how we do things here', which is the most common definition of culture."
After conducting a good cultural analysis, you should define what you want to achieve and develop a plan with concrete measures based on the cultural data you have acquired. Then work in a structured and systematic way over time to achieve the goals.
How can cultural data take your organization to the next level?
In most organizations, there are always large but undefined gaps between the culture a company has and the optimal culture for achieving the company's strategic goals. This is the difference between actual and desired culture. The leader has an important role here as a culture developer.
"In order to increase innovation and collaboration, for example, the business needs to understand how far away they are and have a plan to develop what they lack".
Gurill Narum Mediaa is convinced that with good data and empirical processes, culture can in this way be a driver for both clarifying the actual situation and helping to create growth.
