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Every time you read an article about poor organisational performance, it seems culture is the culprit. Targeted organisations are said to have a ‘poor’ or ‘toxic’ culture and a new and better one is urgently needed. But what culture actually is and how it really works is often misunderstood. And those wrong assumptions means that many of the proposed fixes are destined to fail, leaving you right back where you started.


There is plenty of research exploring culture's role in determining organisational performance, and in recent years there has also been an increasing regulatory and governance focus on culture, resulting from high profile failures at both a company and systemic level. Yet views about what culture is and how to address it are diverse, and often have embedded within them highly questionable assumptions. Not surprisingly, if you build a program on faulty definitions and assumptions, it’s unlikely to be successful!
Let’s explode six common mistaken assumptions, and suggest half-a-dozen tips on how to diagnose, and then fix, organisational culture properly.

Common assumptions about culture
Myth 1: Culture is… a well-defined independent phenomenon
Culture is far from being an obvious and self-evident concept, even though it is often discussed without definition. Commonly, culture is equated to how people in an organisation are seen or found to behave or is described as ‘the way we do things around here.’ Common prescriptions in addressing perceived poor culture focus on mandating behaviour or setting new rules. Change programs based on these simplistic and superficial views of culture and how it is changed inevitably fail or do not last very long, with the old behaviours soon re-emerging.

Clearly, the causes of poor cultural outcomes are deeper, more complex and more dynamic than are apparent from just observing behaviour. Behaviour is, therefore, an insufficient explanation of culture, and consideration needs to be given not only to the way we do things around here, but why and how we do them. It is not surprising, therefore, that culture has been referred to as the ‘shadow side’ of the organisation and described as analogous to the weather and the sand on the beach.

Lead academic and practical work on culture change by Edgar Schien and more recently in Australia by Siobhan McHale,provides a deeper and more nuanced view of culture. Drawing on this work, an organisation's culture can be defined as:

"the collective assumptions made in an organisation that shape how people think, how they act, and the agreements and rules made on how the organisation operates."

The culture embodies and describes how the organisation:

• behaves and is experienced in accomplishing its work (technical culture);
• survives and grows in its commercial, regulatory, and societal environment (macro-culture); and
• organises itself and its members' relationships (social culture).

Subcultures and microcultures may also apply to subunits or particular work environments within an organisation – operating theatres in a large hospital might be an example of this.

Culture is also multilayered, encompassing artifacts (visible structures and processes and observed behaviours); espoused values and goals; and underlying assumptions about beliefs and values which shape behaviours, perceptions and feelings in an organisational context. So, consideration needs to be given both to the observed and reported behaviour and the explicit rules and statements made about how the organisation conducts itself and the embodied patterns of collective behaviour and the implicit rules and accepted conduct that guide decisions and actions.

Myth 2: Culture is… a fad that will go away
Thinking about culture is not new. Organisations have always sought to improve their performance and achieve excellence by examining how they operate and organise. What is new are:

• greater community and regulatory expectations on business ethics, conduct and social responsibility;
• changing commercial imperatives which require new ways of doing things; and
• changing expectations of organisation members and potential members about how people work together and about work itself.

The organisation’s culture will determine how the organisation addresses these forces to survive and grow in a changing environment.

Myth 3: Culture is… either good or bad
Judgments about culture are often made outside an organisation based on limited information and understanding about all the forces and patterns which create and maintain an organisational culture. They often only focus on one area of practice, such safety, risk or diversity, and not the whole culture.

To be complete, judgments about culture need to be based on a thorough analysis of the multiple elements and dynamics which create it. While good safety and risk practice are imperatives for any organisation, focusing on those aspects alone risks overlooking the complex interrelationships and dynamics between the organisation's macro-, technical and social culture and any sub- or micro- cultures in operation.
The primary focus in diagnosing and intervening in culture should be on ensuring that the culture is relevant to and supports what the organisation is trying to achieve within its commercial, regulatory and social environment.

Myth 4: Culture is… easily measured
There are many useful tools that can be used to assist in diagnosing organisation culture and checking alignment of culture with expectations. These include culture typologies such as Cameron and Quinn; engagement surveys; culture scorecards; role analysis, forcefield analysis, focus groups and search workshops. Many indicators can also be used as an early warning of cultural issues. These typically include safety, customer complaints and resolution, employee engagement measures, regulatory breaches, loss events, poor audit outcomes/comments, and whistleblowing reports.

However, a single tool or indicator can never provide the depth required to get to the underlying and unspoken assumptions at the heart of culture. It also cannot capture the way the elements of culture interact with each other; and whether the culture supports or detracts from the achievement of the organisation's work in its environment.

Myth 5: Culture is… driven from the top
Leadership, role modelling and setting the tone are all critical factors in ensuring a relevant culture. Culture can come from the top, such as a founder – think of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. More often, it evolves shaped by its people and their dialogue; its environment, history and industry; the quality of leadership; and its success and track record.

This means the culture belongs to the organisation and not its leaders or any individual, and represents the accumulated learning and experience of the organisation/group to which it belongs. While setting the tone from the top is essential, it needs to be enacted by leadership throughout the organisation and adopted by the whole organisation if it is to be entrenched.

Myth 6: Culture is… easily changed
Reinvigorating business purpose, values and aspirations and mandating desired behaviour are seductive and look like a quick and easy fix. However, the reality is that cultural change is likely to take time to diagnose, revitalise and embed. All the elements of culture and how they interact to ensure that leadership supports, models and drives the desired culture change need to be considered in the change process.
Cultural change is also not a one-off exercise if the culture is to be entrenched. As the organisation matures, its environment changes and new people come in, there needs to be a continual check-in and dialogue throughout the organisation to ensure the culture continues to be relevant, appropriate and sustainable.

Six tips for diagnosing culture and intervening to bring about cultural change
When an organisation seeks to change its culture, there’s often a strong temptation to go straight to the culture itself. Instead, the best place to start is by defining what the organisation is trying to achieve in its environment and how it is organised. Then and only then can you give consideration to the forces which are moving the organisation towards or away from its objectives, so that it has a relevant, appropriate and sustainable culture.

For best results, culture change requires active intervention and engagement given the breadth, depth and resilience of culture in the face of change or the desire for transformation. It needs to probe the deepest assumptions about what the organisation is trying to do and what the environment in which it operates allows or enables it to do. Understanding group decisions and dynamics is as important as individual performance and actions.

How do you go about assessing culture and developing it so that better fits the organisation? Not surprisingly it’s not a single step, but a series of them. Taken together, they create an understanding of what the culture is and how it is impacting organisation purpose and performance. Here are the six steps:

1. Diagnose and understand how your current culture and shared assumptions actually operate and how the culture is deployed;
2. Identify the disconnect between the current espoused culture and the future preferred culture, and the deep underlying assumptions that must be addressed to realign them with the business strategy and purpose
3. Develop the core building blocks of the preferred culture and the assumptions which underpin it, and their alignment with the business purpose;
4. Road-test the impact of new policies, procedures, systems, and processes on the desired culture;
5. Develop and implement interventions to realign the culture over a realistic timeframe; and finally,
6. Engage the business in an ongoing dialogue about the culture and how it supports and underpins the organisation and its success. This is not a one stop fix that you can then tick off as a job well done – it requires a program of attention. It’s like maintaining a car: the major service will get it up to scratch, but you should not then assume you never need to do anything again!

The takeway
If you are to change the culture of your organisation, you need to know how it functions in your organisation. Only then can your organisation achieve its purpose and operate effectively and appropriately in its commercial, regulatory and social environment.
You need a multi-step approach using a range of tools to diagnose, plan and execute interventions that bring about relevant, positive and lasting cultural change. And you need to commit to a continuous process, involving ongoing dialogue throughout the organisation if the culture of your organisation is to be relevant, appropriate and sustainable.

Peter Armstrong is a member of The Network of Consulting Professionals and an expert in organisation performance and culture. You can contact him at peter.armstrong@inveniam.net.au and 0409 436 946.