Discover 12 reasons why your culture is preventing you from being the organisation you want to be, awareness is the first step on the journey to redemption.

1. 12Signs your culture is
broken

2. 1Misalignment
Misalignment among leaders causes confusion.
Misinterpretation creates conflicting agendas and causes
waste. Time and money are lost trying to decipher the
correct focus and course of action.
Leaders are responsible for providing clarity, to ensure that
people understand the organisational 'what', the strategy
and equally important is the purpose.
How can your people be expected to deliver the right things
without clarity?

3. 2When a leader is more concerned with their own agenda
than that of the organisation, delivering the strategy
becomes extremely difficult. They may be concerned with
advancing their career, achieving a bonus, getting one over
their colleagues. They recruit in their own image, looking for
similar traits and then hold them back by holding on to them.
Whatever their reason, the impact is wasteful, costly and
could put the organisation at risk.
Does your structure and the leadership incentives you have
in place drive the behaviours you need?
Self Interest

4. 3Focusing on the wrong stuff
Being clear what you are working on and how it
contributes to the big picture is fundamental.
Focusing on things because you always have doesn’t
make them the right things. Be sure you are utilising
your resources in the right areas and on those areas
that will deliver the greatest impact on your strategy.
Are you making it easy for your people to make the
right choices?

5. 4Lack of TRUST
Trust is a two way thing. To get it you must be
prepared to give it.
Do your people trust your leaders to ‘do the right
thing’, to be open (as far as is practical), fair and
consistent? Patrick Lencioni positions trust as the
foundation stone. The absence of trust being one
of the five dysfunctions of teams.
Do you trust your people to ‘do the right thing’ or do you
design in processes to prevent them from doing it wrong?

6. 5Silos
Everyone knows that silos are unhealthy yet we still allow
them to develop in our organisations. Value is lost through a
lack of communication and collaboration between teams.
Diversity of opinion and inclusive thinking are essential to
increase productivity and unlock potential.
Things developed in isolation will hit (often preventable)
obstacles further down the line.
Does your environment encourage diversity of thinking and
value different opinions?

7. 6Failing to learn
Failure is an essential part of success. Just ask Sir
James Dyson who reportedly 'failed' over 5,000 times
on route to developing his first bag-less vacuum cleaner.
Nobody gets things right all of the time. Your attitude to
failure has a huge bearing on your culture and
behaviours. Embrace failure and you will take the
opportunity to learn and grow. However, we often fear
failure and, to protect ourselves, we inadvertently build
cultures that look to apportion blame. A proactive
attitude to learning without fear of repercussion is
essential to grow and develop the organisation.
When was the last time you and your team truly
examined a failure to really understand how to improve?

8. 7Not prepared to take risks
People don't take calculated risks unless they believe
they have the psychological safety within which to do
so.
Google invested years understanding what makes teams
effective. Charles Duhigg shares the Google story in his
book 'Smarter Faster Better'. In it, he talks about
Psychological Safety in context of effective teams.
If your people don't feel 'safe' they won't have a go. This
means you miss out on creativity, discourage innovation
with people disengaging and not taking ownership to
solve problems.
What are you missing out on?
The tenets of Psychological Safety:
1. Allowing others too fail safely
2. Freedom to question others choices
3. Trust is never undermined
4. Respect (and encourage) divergent opinions

9. 8Action without THINKING
Feel like it's groundhog day? It's likely that your people are
in auto pilot, doing the same things day in day out. This may
be fine whilst you are getting the results you want, however if
you are looking for continuous improvement or you need to
improve your results, you will need to change your thinking.
Your thinking directly affects the actions you take. It’s those
actions that determine the results you get. All too often,
organisations focus their attention on improving the actions
and assume the quality of thinking is in place to effect the
change.
What organisational habits exist?
Do your people recognise the need to change and do they
have the tools to change their habits and behaviours?

10. 9Internal Politics
Organisational politics will always exist. The
question is, how much damage do politics
cause?
Every time your people have to navigate the
internal politics amongst departments,
colleagues and leaders it drains their energy.
It's like facing the dementors from Harry
Potter.
Are you making it easy for your people to flourish?

11. 10It’s all about me
Ever met the leader who takes all the credit yet passes
on the blame? This type of ego centric leadership is a
sure fire way to alienate people.
In fact, people will quickly work out how they are
managed and develop coping mechanisms to ensure
they can get by. This leadership behaviour will cause
your people to play well within their limits, they will be
unlikely or unwilling to take risks?
How do you spot this type of behaviour?
What cultural dynamics may be causing or amplifying
their behaviour?
What are you prepared to do about it?

12. 11Living with Interference
You know you have a real problem when your people
have accepted the status quo. They no longer
challenge, they just get on with it, they accept it is the
way it is. If this is the case your people may feel it's
not worth it or might have lost interest altogether.
Whatever their reason, this is costing the business,
millions!
The potential to improve and grow is lost within a sea
of disengagement.
Where are you as a business getting in your own way?

13. 12Inability to give (and take)
feedback
Having to give feedback triggers emotional
feelings, perhaps that we may upset someone
by highlighting an area they could react negatively to. Our
perceptions shape the reaction we are expecting to see.
As the recipient we are also likely to have an emotional
response, we are likely to react defensively.
How can you create a culture where feedback is central to everything,
where people feel ‘safe’ both giving and receiving feedback?
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions." Ken Blanchard
Why then, do we find it so hard to give feedback?
Why also, do we find it tough to receive feedback?

14. Creating mindsets that unlock
productivity and realise potential
"In just 90-days we have not only identified
over £500k of savings across the business,
but improved engagement, streamlined
processes, and freed up almost 30 hours a
week by removing duplication."
UK Food Manufacturer

15. 12Signs your culture is
broken
1. Misalignment
2. Self interest
3. Focusing on the wrong stuff
4. Lack of trust
5. Silos
6. Failing to learn
7. Not prepared to take risks
8. Action without thinking
9. Internal politics
10. It's all about me
11. Living with interference
12. Inability to give (& take) feedback

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