I recently marked 5 years at Coode and have been reflecting a little on the work that I’ve done in that time, and how it has shaped and confirmed some of my beliefs about the world of culture change.

Our goal at Coode is to help organisations and leaders accelerate their strategy by articulating and activating the culture and behaviours they need right from the very top. To eliminate organisational friction, align leaders and teams, and get performance firing on all cylinders.

To do that, you must first recognise that effective execution and culture go hand in hand, and it’s a goal that speaks to me personally: I have a strong belief (which is becoming more militant with age I confess) that organisations don’t have to choose between performance and people when it comes to their success. One fuels the other, you just have to be able to hold two thoughts in your head at one time (easier said that done if the mainstream media’s reports on recent organisational choices are to be believed).

That belief has been stoked through my past 5 years’ at Coode, and I thought I’d share 5 other learnings that I now hold to be incontrovertible if you’re serious about culture change.

1# Recognise that strategy and culture are two sides of the same coin

Anyone can write a belting strategy (alright not anyone but you get the gist), but it’s an organisation’s ability to execute against it that will determine success, not the quality of the PowerPoint. Leaders need to integrate thinking around strategy and culture from the very start to be successful, not leave culture as the afterthought, Friday afternoon topic, or something they’ll get to when performance improves. Performance. Will. Not. Improve. Unless. You. Shape. The. Culture. You. Need. To. Achieve. It. Point made.

#2 You can’t change a culture by starting halfway down an organisation

Forgive the rather clumsy hierarchical formulation but the essence holds true. More often than not, we won’t actually work with clients whose CEOs and Exec Teams don’t see the need to be involved in our work from the outset.  It cripples the impact, and frankly, unless your Exec are going to show up and reflect on how they too must change to land the strategy, you might as well not spend the money.

#3 Resilience and adaptability are the most needed leadership capabilities

The last 5 years have been lively to say the least: the small matter of a pandemic, political volatility, economic recession and we’re still standing! Take a bow. But there’s a lesson in there and it’s the leaders and teams that reflect on how they must adapt to survive that will continue to weather the storm. This isn’t about hosting a few “resilience-building” workshops, but deep reflection on what it takes to adapt, evolve, go again. Gone are the times of predictable, routine business. Building self-awareness and treating personal transformation as “always on” will sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to future leadership success. It’s a mindset game.

#4 Don’t chase employee engagement as an end in itself, treat it as an outcome

Keeping an eye on how your people feel is great – don’t stop, there may be small things getting in the way that you can fix. But it’s not an absolute indicator that you’re building a performance culture. Want to know whether you’re doing that? Measure behaviours. Set a clear destination, understand where you need to make changes to reach it and keep an eye on your engagement scores along the way. Realistically, if you’re driving a big shift, it might not be for everyone, and that’s ok. Engagement might even initially go down. But over time, as you start to align your culture, your engagement scores will increase again. If I was on an Exec team right now, I’d be tracking behaviours and engagement. See the two as a handshake.

#5 Culture change cannot (just) be owned by the CPO/people department

You can’t just outsource culture change to your HR colleagues, it doesn’t work like that. Sure the CPO and People Team are key stakeholders, and often experienced change programmes leaders, but they do not own the culture, nor can they be responsible for solely owning the work. Culture change is a business priority, and to be successful, needs to both be defined (what culture do we need to be successful?) and owned (what do we need to change to get there?) by the business and its leaders. Only then can the People Team play their critical part in helping the change take shape.

So there you have it – my 5 for 5. There are plenty more learnings of course but every blog needs a device so there’s mine! What other culture change truths speak to you?

Stay in touch and subscribe to de-cooded, our regular digest of business insights from the perspective of leadership and culture.

Coode Associates supports and advises companies on leadership and organisational effectiveness and alignment, identifying Purpose and Values and on culture-shaping more generally. If you’d like to speak with us, we’d love to hear from you: info@coodeasssociates.com.