Is Your Company Culture Courageous?
“Understanding each of your employees’ innate capabilities—the framing of how they see the world and approach their work—offers you the key to ensuring their sense of meaning and purpose is high.”
The future of work is still changing rapidly. Hybrid and remote work continue to be a priority for many American workers, and advances in technology and collaborative tools are still on the rise. With this flexibility, however, comes inherent disconnection because amidst those of us who’ve experienced heightened isolation, our brains have carved new neural pathways that convince us we prefer to be by ourselves.
Though not true (as research shows us that humans do in fact crave connection!), it is common for employees to believe in this preference and to fight for it, leaving leaders trying to convince them otherwise—a battle that leaders are less likely to win by attacking it head on. To avoid disconnection becoming disengagement and resulting in lower productivity and higher churn, leaders need new ways to create employee connection—ways that inspire employees themselves to push for more connection through work, not less.
The good news is that this kind of employee engagement is not only possible, but probable with the right company culture to facilitate and support it.
Alternative Pathways to Deepen Company Connection
At RTC, we offer a free culture assessment, “What’s Your ‘Courageous Company Culture’ Score?,” to give you, as a leader, an honest assessment of your company culture and propose solutions for solving some of the challenges you face, such as attracting aligned clients and employees, expediting cultural buy-in of new hires, retaining top talent, deepening trust among team members and across departments, teaching managers how to uphold their company’s values and purpose, and yes, getting employees back to work in the office.
Our free culture assessment highlights alternative pathways to intimate, real, and deep connection throughout your company. Regardless of whether your staff is entirely in person, entirely remote, or falls somewhere in between, creating more profound trust throughout your organization is integral to getting where you want to go faster and with less friction.
The reality is that we are in the midst of so much change—psychologically, economically, politically, globally—that it is unlikely your previous winning formula will be the thing that propels you to new heights. From the after-effects of the pandemic, to the liquidity bubble and question of recession, and now the draining of consumers’ savings, most companies are being forced into a new hero’s journey that will test their limits and push them into new ordeals. Those who step willingly into the offered transformation are most likely to come out more resilient on the other side and to endure the least amount of suffering in the process.
Sure, there are digital tools, AI, and certain systems that can aid you on this next hero’s journey, but ultimately it is your people who will be the largest factor in determining if and how you survive. And your culture is powered by your people.
Our free assessment offers you solutions that include the following:
Connecting the dots between employee personal purpose and company purpose so your people know why they matter to the organization
Leveraging employee talents and mitigating unnecessary drama to reduce the financial (and attention) cost of less desirable behaviors
Deepening trust and building connection quickly across teams and departments so they can move further, faster
Bolstering psychological safety for better team engagement and resilience so your employees can leverage productive conflict into innovation instead of avoiding it altogether
To make personnel and culture decisions wisely, you need connective tissue between your people so that they can unleash their innate capacity to innovate, while upholding your purpose, mission, and core values—together.
Especially because the future of hiring doesn’t look any easier. According to Katy George, chief people officer at McKinsey and Company, “The pandemic accelerated three workplace trends that were already under way: the search for meaning, the desire for flexibility, and the pace of technological transformation, which has enabled hybrid and virtual work but also is fundamentally changing jobs and the skills required. It also led to ‘the great attrition’ —meaning the unceasing restlessness of much of the workforce.”
Understanding your employees’ innate capabilities—the framing of how they see the world and approach their work—offers your leaders and managers the key to ensuring employees’ sense of meaning and purpose is high. This attuned awareness begins with evaluating your company culture, of which your employees make up the very foundation. Knowing what type of company culture you currently possess can arm you with the knowledge of where you are today as a company and ensure you are capable of seeing around the corner while growing in the direction you envision.
When you complete our culture assessment, you will be given the opportunity to take a hard look at your company’s current iteration and ask yourself tough questions about where you are now in comparison to where you want to be. You’ll discover new insights and greater visibility into your company culture as it stands today, such as your culture strengths, common pitfalls specific to your culture type, and actionable next steps you can take to infuse courage into your company culture.
As Marshall Goldsmith famously coined, “What got you here won’t get you there,” meaning what got your company where it is today is unlikely to be the mix of ingredients you will need on this leg of your hero’s journey. Are you ready to step into this next adventure? Are you ready to find out just how courageous your company culture is . . . and can be?