How Mantel Group became a Great Place to Work — Part 2 of 4

The importance of a holistic approach to Culture and Values

Preamble

This is the second in a series of four articles that describe the approach and philosophies that underpin the organisational culture at Mantel Group. We’re proud of the team that we’ve built over the last 4+ years and hope that by reading these articles you gain insight and inspiration for the evolution of your own organisation.

If you haven’t read the previous articles, we suggest you start with them so that you have a better understanding and context of our holistic approach to organisational culture.

Released over a four-week period, the articles will cover the following topics:

• Part 1 — How “Reinventing” the organisation created strong foundations
• Part 2 — The importance of a holistic approach to Culture and Values (this article)
• Part 3 — The importance of Followership
• Part 4 — The Importance of Leadership & Conclusion

Creating a holistic view of culture with the Organisational Culture model

The relationship between executives, organisational structures, leadership and teams is often complex. When they are not in alignment, it is common for different areas or levels of the organisation to work in isolation or conflict with others. Grassroots team members may feel that senior leaders behave inconsistently and don’t role model company values and behaviours.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

― Buckminster Fuller

The Organisational Culture model is our attempt to visualise a holistic view of the aspects of our culture and how things work together to ensure that everyone, from executives to our most junior associates understands our behavioural standards and how we work together, reduce conflict and achieve success.

The model shows how four different aspects shape organisational culture, and how they work together to realise a great place to work:

Organisational Paradigm — As discussed earlier, it includes your organisation’s management style (e.g. actions, beliefs and social/psychological environment) that it displays in pursuit of organisational goals.

The organisational paradigm is your starting point for defining your organisation’s customs — the following aspects provide real-world guidance on how your team should act and behave to be consistent with and support your organisational paradigm.

• Values — the underlying beliefs, assumptions, values and ways of interacting between team members. Your values should be consistent with, and support the organisational paradigm
• Followership style — how team members work with each other and leadership to achieve organisational objectives. Your followership style should be consistent with and support your values.
• Leadership Style — is the behavioural approach employed by leaders to influence, motivate, and direct their team. It should inspire the desired followership style and reinforce company values.

We believe that the best results come when all four aspects of an organisation’s culture work together and reinforce each other. You create a thriving workplace when all aspects are in alignment, but individuals and teams struggle when one aspect appears to be inconsistent or in opposition to others.

For example servant leadership is likely to fail in an organisation that values competition, and individual achievement over shared values and empowerment.

Organisational Values

“Determine what behaviors and beliefs you value as a company, and have everyone live true to them. These behaviors and beliefs should be so essential to your core, that you don’t even think of it as culture.”

-Brittany Forsyth, SVP of HR, Shopify

When faced with a new or challenging problem, even in volatile or uncertain times, by keeping your values in mind and being guided by them, your employees will make the right decision for your organisation and can be assured that they are making the right choice. Clear values also help them identify red flags when decisions don’t align with values and help them adjust their actions or response.

When looking through the lens of the Culture model you can see how:

• Your values should align and amplify your organisational paradigm. For example, encouraging “amber” behaviours (such as self-benefit etc) in a Green organisation will lead to dysfunction.
• Your values shape the leadership style for your organisation and are in turn reinforced by it. That is, leaders should visibly role model the company values to the rest of the team.
• Your culture guides the followership style for your organisation but in reality, it’s created by the actions of followers.

For example, Amber organisations often have values that promote stability, structure and hierarchy whereas Teal values are often designed to tear these things down.

Understanding the Values that best suit your organisation

You can use the top-left (What I experience) and bottom-left (What we experience) quadrants on the Reinventing Organisations Map to explore the values that will be most effective in supporting your organisational paradigm

For example: A Green organisation should look to develop values that encourage empathy, inspire and build community. They should avoid values that reinforce rank or hierarchy, blind loyalty to management or fear of failure.

Our Values at Mantel Group

Why is culture so important to a business? Here is a simple way to frame it. The stronger the culture, the less corporate process a company needs. When the culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing.

— Brian Chesky, Co-founder and CEO of Airbnb

We developed our organisational values aligned to the aspirations of a Green/Teal organisation. To do this, the best approach for us was to:

• Develop an organisation where we minimise policies and procedures and instead use a small set of principles to guide decision making
• Develop these principles in consultation with the team rather than being mandated by the leadership team.

Our five principles remain fundamentally unchanged and are still a defining characteristic that sets us apart from other professional services organisations:

• Make Good Choices — We’re common sense people, good judgment people, gut instinct people. We trust ourselves and each other to make the best decisions for the company, for our clients and the team.
• In It Together — We are a people business. Our uniqueness and value come from our people and the meaningful interactions we create within the team, with our clients and theirs.
• Communicate Directly — Communication is central to everything we do. It is a crucial part of each of our jobs, and we do so directly, not pushed through a hierarchy. We ensure clarity of purpose and understanding of expectations by communicating clearly; multiple times if needed.
• Love what you’re doing and be awesome at it — Our people are seriously talented! We recruit high calibre people who’ll thrive in our environment and who know that important things are worth the hard work.
• Make Things Better — We transform things for the better, build enduring relationships, and contribute to our community. We share the things we’ve learnt and always think about our legacies — on the project, with our client and in our team.

I’m really proud to have been involved in the creation of these principles and can honestly vouch first-hand for how they have liberated the team and helped them make their own decisions and not defer to “management”. They have definitely helped to “Make Things Better” ;-)

What’s Next

If you’ve enjoyed reading this article stay tuned for the remaining two in this four-part series:

• Part 3 — The importance of Followership(to be released 19th of September)
• Part 4 — The Importance of Leadership & Conclusion (to be released 26th of September)