What is going on in your workplace culture? Do you see what is happening in your workplace culture? Is your workplace culture a culture by design, meaning that you created it to provide a specific experience for your people. Or is your workplace culture a culture by default, meaning that anything goes within the confines of your organization.
Recently the head coach of Northwestern University was fired because of hazing that was going on in the football program. Northwestern University President Michael Schill wrote in an open letter to the university family, “The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of the team. The hazing we investigated was widespread and clearly not a secret within the program, providing Coach Fitzgerald with the opportunity to learn what was happening.”
What is going on in your workplace culture? The CEO or leader of the organization is responsible for the workplace culture of the organization. It is really easy to look the other way when a top producer is not living the values, disrespecting someone, or causing internal strife. It is really easy to justify someone’s actions when their bottom-line performance contributes to the organization’s bottom line. But the truth is that allowing those people to stay in the organization brings down the workplace culture for everyone.
How often have you let someone go, and someone else in the organization came up and said, “What took you so long?” I see this all the time. Protecting the culture for everyone means not allowing anyone to stay who is not living the organizational values and, therefore, is detracting from the experience that everyone has.
When you protect the workplace culture for everyone, everyone on the team values the culture even more, you create loyalty to both you, the leader, and the organization, and you get a team of people who also want to also protect the culture. When you protect the culture, you create an organization that will always attract and retain the best people. And that will show up directly on your bottom line.
Be the leader who engages people, sees what is happening in the workplace culture, and moves quickly to protect the culture you and your team have worked hard to create.
Want to know more about what is happening in your workplace culture? Check out The Culture Audit, our in-depth analysis tool that evaluates a workplace culture and then provides a step-by-step action place to address any areas that require improvement.
