Define Culture Based on Enduring Ideals, Not Broad Characterisations

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Matt Collier is a Senior Industry Fellow at FORWARD — The RMIT Centre for Future Skills and Workforce Transformation — writing with director Peter Thomas and development partner Sally McNamara — on how leaders can use more outcome-oriented language on culture, which should be defined by enduring ideals, creating clarity and consistency that gets and keeps people moving in the same direction.

In the famous jam experiment conducted by Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper, researchers set up a display of jams in a grocery store. In one scenario, they provided a large assortment of flavours, while in another, they offered a limited selection. It turns out that the larger display attracted more attention but that consumers were 10x more likely to purchase when presented with a smaller selection.

The study showed the phenomenon of choice overload, where an abundance of options can lead to decision paralysis and reduced satisfaction as people perseverate over whether they made the right decision. There is a similar dynamic at play on matters of organisational culture and internal communications, where employees tend to be bombarded with messaging:

• The risk function, facing scrutiny from regulators and investors, wants to cultivate a risk culture;
• The DEI team, laudably, works to foster a more inclusive culture;
• The L&D folks push for a learning culture;
• Technology leaders promote an agile culture;
• Marketing and customer teams tout a customer-centric culture; and
• CEOs might amplify any or all of the above, a purpose-led or high-performing culture, or whatever fits that quarter’s narrative.

If you’re an employee who’s tuned into these kinds of things, you might pause to consider the choice but struggle to make sense of which culture you’re meant to be participating in. If you’re not one that’s particularly interested, or you’re otherwise stressed and overworked, you might tune out the noise and instead focus on getting your work done, hewing to the prevailing culture within your immediate team. Either way, if the jam experiment provides a parallel, the end result may be the same confusion, inaction, or dissatisfaction faced by shoppers, thwarting even the best laid plans around shaping culture.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. In our first essay in this series, we set the scene for organisational culture in a post-pandemic world, arguing that it can and should be shaped deliberately. In the second essay, we framed the stakes, laying out the possibilities of culture for developing future skills at scale as well as the implications — for better, and for worse — that culture has on organisational performance and public health.

In this essay, we’ll look at the language typically used by regulators, leaders, and comms types to characterise culture in policy documents, speeches, communiques, and town halls. Then we’ll demonstrate that prioritising one or two of these characterisations — which is advisable under the aphorism less is more — does not necessarily exclude the others since they generally rely on similar ideals.

And finally, we’ll argue that culture should be defined not by characterisations but by simple, enduring ideals — which are much more accessible and relatable and ought to hold strong through crises and leadership changes alike — and that the messaging used in internal communications should draw on and reinforce those ideals rather than gloss over or seek to change them.

Typical Language Used to Characterise Culture

Culture tends to get characterised in many different ways. Since one of the authors has experience leading culture for a major insurer, let’s start with an example from the Hong Kong Insurance Authority, or HKIA. In May 2021, HKIA issued the Guideline on Group Supervision (GL32), which is a broad set of regulatory expectations for the industry that references culture sixteen times, alternating between the use of:

• Compliance culture;
• Corporate culture;
• Risk culture; and
• Business culture.

Some instances are used in context and come with a definition, while in other cases, it appears that the usage could be interchangeable. Where there is no ambiguity is regarding the Board’s role in culture:

The Group Board should take the lead in setting the appropriate “tone at the top” including adherence to the corporate values and risk culture to avoid excessive risk taking, which should be reflected in the supervised group’s code of ethics, or similar group policy, as to what the supervised group considers to be acceptable and unacceptable conduct.

Clearly, the HKIA wishes for insurers under its purview to codify “the set of norms, values, attitudes, and behaviours” that govern everything from sound risk management to fair treatment of customers to remuneration policies. Here, by using the word codify, we mean to imply a degree of rigour not only in embedding cultural ideals into the organisation’s policies, processes, and ways of working, but also in choosing the rhetoric and setting the tone around culture. Regarding senior management, it is telling that HKIA puts carrying out “day-to-day operations … effectively and in line with corporate culture …” first in its list of their duties.

Let’s consider another watchdog with a wider scope: the UK Financial Reporting Council (FRC). It sets the UK Corporate Governance Code, which, for context, covers companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. The FRC has highlighted culture since 2016 when it issued its report on Corporate Culture and the Role of Boards, where it defined culture in terms similar to what the HKIA has used, writing, “culture in a corporate context can be defined as a combination of the values, attitudes and behaviours manifested by a company in its operations and relations with its stakeholders.”

As a testament to its emphasis on culture, the FRC issued a 43-page report in December 2021 entitled Creating a Positive Culture: Opportunities and Challenges. In this report, the word culture is mentioned 452 times, using all the same modifiers as HKIA and adding a few others, including company culture, organisational culture, working culture, positive culture, strong culture, common culture, and more. But, instructively, there is a section in the report entitled Framing Culture that casts the word as an ‘umbrella’ term that is all encompassing.

The context in which culture is discussed is more important than its definition. Culture is often perceived as an umbrella term that encompasses, among other things, organisational purpose, values, ethics, beliefs, principles, philosophy, attitudes, and behaviours, with a direct impact on an organisation’s approach to how and where people work, its stakeholder relations, strategy, and business model.

As both the HKIA and FRC pieces suggest, culture is inextricably linked to every aspect of an organisation’s aspirations, operations, and obligations. This is what makes it wooly as a concept, as it exists at a rather high order of abstraction, making it tough to contextualise without precise language. While regulators might use more clinical terms such as risk culture or corporate culture, leaders across sectors tend to use characterisations that speak to their strategic ambitions. We gave a few examples in the introduction, but will further illustrate with the following:

• Innovative Culture. An innovative culture values creativity, experimentation, and learning from failure. It is a culture that encourages employees to take calculated risks, challenge conventional thinking, and pursue new ideas that push boundaries.
• Inclusive Culture. An inclusive culture values diversity, equity, and belonging. It is a culture that recognises and appreciates individual differences, creates a sense of community, and fosters an environment where everyone feels valued, respected, and welcomed.
• Customer-centric Culture. A customer-centric culture values understanding, anticipating, and fulfilling customer needs. It puts the customer at the center of everything, from product to service delivery, and strives to exceed their expectations at every touchpoint.
• Risk-savvy Culture. A risk-savvy culture values informed decision-making, continuous improvement, and adaptability. It is a culture that encourages employees to identify and manage risks, learn from their experiences, and use that knowledge to make better decisions.
• Digitally-ready Culture. A digitally-ready culture values innovation, agility, and technology-enabled transformation. It is well-positioned to harness emerging technologies, adapt to changing market conditions, and leverage digital tools to create new value and drive growth.
• Psychologically-Safe Culture. A psychologically-safe culture values respect, openness, and trust. It creates a supportive environment where employees feel comfortable sharing ideas, expressing concerns, and taking risks without fear of retribution, ridicule, or ostracism.
• High-performing Culture. A high-performing culture values excellence, accountability, and results. It is a culture that sets clear expectations, provides the necessary resources, and holds employees to high standards, while rewarding and recognising top performers.
• Collaborative Culture. A collaborative culture values teamwork, cooperation, and collective problem-solving. It is a culture that fosters open communication, encourages knowledge sharing, and leverages the diverse expertise of its employees to achieve common goals.
• Ethical Culture. An ethical culture values integrity, transparency, and ethical decision-making. It is a culture that promotes a strong sense of ethics and guides employees to act in a morally responsible manner, both internally and in interactions with external stakeholders.
• Agile Culture. An agile culture values flexibility, adaptability, and quick decision-making. It is a culture that embraces change, encourages innovation, and empowers employees to respond swiftly to market dynamics and emerging opportunities.
• Empowered Culture. An empowered culture values autonomy, accountability, and employee empowerment. It is a culture that trusts employees to make decisions, take ownership of their work, and do their part to advance the organisation’s strategy.
• Sustainability Culture. A sustainable or ESG-focused culture values environmental and social responsibility. It prioritises sustainable practices, minimises its ecological footprint, and contributes positively to the well-being of the communities in which it operates.
• Safety Culture. A safety culture prioritises the physical and psychological well-being of employees, fostering a secure work environment. It values proactive hazard identification, training, and continuous improvement to ensure health and welfare.
• Learning Culture. A learning culture emphasises continuous growth, knowledge sharing, and personal development. It encourages curiosity, feedback, and the pursuit of new skills, fostering an environment of continuous learning and skill building.
• Engineering Culture. In manufacturing environment, quality and integrity take center stage. From product development to the factory floor, it upholds strict standards, fosters precision, and ensures robust engineering practices for safety and reliability.
• Execution Culture. An execution culture thrives on action-oriented mindset and accountability, driving consistent delivery of results. It emphasises timely decisions, efficient processes, proactive problem-solving, and a relentless pursuit of desired outcomes.
• Speak-up Culture. A speak-up culture promotes open, honest two-way communication and encourages employees to voice their ideas, concerns, and opinions, including contrary ones, without fear of retribution. It values transparency, trust, and courage.

Leaders may well look at these characterisations and want their culture to reflect all if not substantially all of them. Indeed, they are each worthy in their own right, although some may be more pertinent in one industry over another. For example, in manufacturing or aviation, a safety culture may rightly near the top of the list, whereas an ethical culture might be prized in the legal field or at institutions that deal with public trust. The key is to pick messaging that aligns with the organisation’s values, strategic objectives, and desired outcomes.

At this juncture, however, there are two challenges. First, while these outcome-oriented characterisations are a step in the right direction compared to the more clinical terminology used by regulators, they remain somewhat abstract and difficult for employees to internalise in a way that shapes mindsets and behaviours. Second, as we’ve just hinted, it’s tough to choose one or two when leaders want them all or when a plurality of views from across the organisation can’t reach consensus—leaving employees with a proverbial set of choices akin to a table stacked with jellies.

Characterisations Generally Rely on Similar Ideals

Let’s address both challenges. For the first one, what if we found a way to define the characterisations using a set of cultural ideals that are not only more relatable to employees, but that also happen to underpin many of the characterisations? And if we solve that, does the second challenge become moot except for, say, the need to prioritise one or two characterisations to be used at a given time for messaging purposes?

To do this, we must revisit the Inner Development Goals, or IDGs, which are five dimensions of human inner growth and development. The IDGs include 23 skills and qualities that can be trained and nurtured. We introduced the IDGs in our second essay because it’s a taxonomy that aids in our series’ primary purpose, which is to explore how culture initiatives can double as a capability-building exercise, and vice versa.

Inner Development Goals (IDGs)

The above 23 skills and qualities influence how we ‘show up’ as humans and approach our everyday work. For the purposes of this exercise, they represent the enduring ideals that we are attempting to distinguish from the characterisations of culture. And the distinction is that the former are more fundamental and accessible than the latter, and also that the former serve as building blocks for the latter.

Perhaps it is instructive to borrow a metaphor from high-school chemistry. Think of the ideals as if they are elements like hydrogen and oxygen; and think of the characterisations as if they are compounds like water (i.e., two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen). In other words, the ideals are more elemental in nature, whereas the characterisations are compounds and therefore, somewhat by definition, more complex. To demonstrate these linkages, let’s play with a few examples.

Example 1: A relatively easy comparison of two characterisations

First, we’ll do a relatively easy one. Very few would argue that an Innovative Culture and an Inclusive Culture rely on wildly differing ideals. In order to innovate, people must feel free to contribute their provocative ideas and/or to encounter failures as they apply a test-and-learn approach; and similarly, in order to be inclusive, the environment must welcome diversity of views and contributions, ensuring that neither will be judged or disregarded. Here are 5 of the 23 IDGs that are salient in drawing the connection between innovation and inclusivity:

1. Openness and Learning Mindset: Both an Innovative Culture and an Inclusive Culture require a foundational mindset of curiosity, vulnerability, and a willingness to embrace change. This ideal fosters an environment where people can learn from diverse perspectives, challenge the status quo, and adapt their thinking and practices.
2. Perspective Skills: Emphasising perspective skills allows individuals to seek and understand insights from contrasting viewpoints. This ideal is vital for both innovation and inclusivity, as it promotes understanding and appreciation of diverse ideas and experiences, leading to better problem-solving and decision-making.
3. Communication Skills: The ideal of effective communication is essential for building an Innovative Culture and an Inclusive Culture. Genuine dialogue, active listening, and adaptability in communication help foster collaboration, manage conflicts constructively, and ensure that diverse voices are heard and valued.
4. Inclusive Mindset and Intercultural Competence: Embracing individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives is a key ideal of both innovation and inclusion. Being inclusive and inter-culturally competent enable organisations to tap into a wide range of ideas, experiences, and talents, fostering creativity and innovation.
5. Trust: Building and maintaining trust is crucial for fostering both innovation and inclusivity. Trust creates psychological safety, enabling individuals to take risks, share ideas, and engage in open dialogue. Trust as an ideal is the foundation for collaboration, cooperation, and a sense of belonging that drives innovation and inclusivity.

Many of the remaining IDGs are also essential in fostering both an Innovative Culture and an Inclusive Culture: ideals like self-awareness, presence, complexity awareness, empathy, courage, creativity, and perseverance are all contributory. Regardless of the ideal, you can imagine how they are more relatable to people when they have a split second to decide how to ‘show up’ to a situation than having to cognitively sort through whether they are being innovative enough, for example.

Example 2: Comparing three popular characterisations

Now, let’s increase the conceptual difficulty. Of all the characterisations of culture, there are three that seem quite popular: an Inclusive Culture, a Customer-Centric Culture, and a Digitally-Ready Culture. So, how are these three versions of culture related vis-a-vis a salient set of underlying ideals? Here we’ll choose another 5 of the 23 IDGs to explore this:

1. Appreciation. Appreciation, as an ideal, enables a deep understanding of stakeholders’ needs, desires, and contexts. In customer centricity, it rightly points us to the human experience. Inclusion appreciates diverse perspectives, promoting respect and a sense of belonging. Being digitally ready entails appreciating and embracing technology’s potential, rather than seeing it as a threat.
2. Courage. In customer centricity, courage helps with challenging status quo and taking risks to innovate and exceed customer expectations. Inclusion requires courage to challenge biases, confront uncomfortable truths, and to be an advocate for yourself and others. Being digitally ready demands courage to embrace emerging technologies and how they might change or improve your work.
3. Optimism. This ideal fuels a positive attitude, fostering belief in the potential for meaningful change and exceptional customer experiences. Inclusion embodies optimism by envisioning a place where individuals thrive, barriers are dismantled, and diverse voices are heard and valued. And being digitally ready necessitates optimism to see the possibilities of digital advancements and changing market dynamics.
4. Co-creation Skills. A customer-centric culture is adept at co-creating products and services with customers, capturing latent insights and fostering loyalty. Co-creation, almost by definition, enables inclusion by facilitating the active participation of diverse individuals, ensuring their perspectives are incorporated in decision-making. Being digitally ready leverages co-creation skills to ensure that policy and process owners work together with those implementing enabling technology.
5. Mobilisation Skills. These skills enable teams to entice customers to actively engage with products, services, and brand advocacy. Inclusion values mobilisation skills as they empower people to bring colleagues together to catalyse collective action towards shared DEI goals. And anyone involved in digital transformations know they require a massive mobilisation across the organisation.

Again, we did the demonstration by selecting five of the IDGs, but you could just as easily pick another handful of ideals — or even swap out one of the characterisations — and run the same exercise, revealing how the ideals are more fundamentally human.

One might argue that the notion of inclusivity is already human and readily accessible to people and, thus, when asked to be more inclusive, they have the innate ability to do so. But many practitioners would likely disagree, noting the training, programming, policies, and so much more that goes into creating an inclusive environment — and we would concur.

What we are attempting to show is that you can position inclusivity in terms of its underlying ideals, which are more human and more relatable and thus more teachable, coachable, scalable and repeatable. And in this example, it wouldn’t just be in service of an Inclusive Culture, but also a Customer-Centric and Digitally-Ready Culture.

Example 3: Comparing characterisations that are in tension

Finally, let’s look at three characterisations that are seemingly in tension: the Innovative Culture, the Risk-Savvy Culture, and the High-Performing Culture. On the surface, these three would entail very different approaches. The first promotes creativity and experimentation, the second encourages informed decision-making as well as sound risk management, and the third wants accountability. But effectively navigating these tensions can set an organisation apart from its peers. As before, let’s use another 5 of the 23 IDGs to see how this might be approached:

1. Complexity Awareness: Complexity awareness is fundamental to the Innovative Culture as it requires understanding and working with complex and systemic conditions. Similarly, the Risk-Savvy Culture values complexity awareness to navigate and manage risks effectively. The High-Performing Culture benefits from complexity awareness by enabling a better understanding of intricate organisational dynamics and driving informed, strategic decision-making.
2. Empathy and Compassion: In the Innovative Culture, empathy and compassion drive the understanding of user needs and foster human-centered design. The Risk-Savvy Culture benefits from empathy and compassion as it promotes psychological safety and support for individuals in challenging situations. Within the High-Performing Culture, empathy and compassion foster a supportive environment that values the well-being and growth of employees.
3. Resilience: In the Innovative Culture, resilience is essential to overcome setbacks, learn from failures, and persist in the pursuit of innovative ideas. The Risk-Savvy Culture values resilience as it enables individuals and teams to bounce back from failure, adapt to circumstances, and recover from potential disruptions. Within the High-Performing Culture, resilience drives perseverance, agility, and the ability to navigate challenges to achieve exceptional results.
4. Humility: In the Innovative Culture, humility encourages openness to diverse perspectives, continuous learning, and adaptation. The Risk-Savvy Culture benefits from humility by fostering a willingness to learn from failures and adapt accordingly. Within the High-Performing Culture, humility enables openness to feedback and a willingness to acknowledge and deal with poor performance.
5. Learning: In the Innovative Culture, a learning mindset fuels creativity, exploration, and experimentation. The Risk-Savvy Culture relies on learning to continuously improve risk management strategies and practices. Within the High-Performing Culture, learning supports ongoing development, knowledge sharing, and the relentless pursuit of excellence in going from strength to strength.

These ideals serve as foundational elements that bridge the tensions between the Innovative, Risk-Savvy, and High-Performing Cultures, enabling organisations to cultivate a holistic and balanced approach. As with the other examples, the exercise could use a different set of the IDGs as ideals and produce a similar conclusion.

Summary of the Exercises

We used the IDGs to facilitate the exercises, deconstructing the characterisations of culture — in the chemistry metaphor, compounds that are more complex— into their underlying ideals, i.e., their simpler elements. It’s at this level of human skills and qualities where you can draw connections between characterisations, including disparate ones. Importantly, it’s also at this level where you can make a vague cultural concept more learnable and practicable.

While characterisations may compete at a messaging level, particularly if too many are used at once, we have demonstrated how they are relatively complementary at an ideals level. Because they are built with the same building blocks of ideals, choosing one to highlight does not necessarily foreclose the prospect of benefitting from the others. Instead, it simply reflects messaging discipline and the organisation’s emphasis on a particular aspect of its culture at a given time.

In our next essay, we will introduce frameworks and constructs that help leaders decide which ideals best define their culture; and in a subsequent essay, we will outline a roll-out approach that helps leaders prioritise and sequence the characterisations they may wish to use depending on where the organisation and its people are starting.

Define Culture with Enduring Ideals, Not Characterisations

Whether a new CEO has joined or an incumbent CEO wants to elevate culture, there is a tendency to turn to marketing or comms interventions, which can be alluring, and understandably so. They’re relatively easy compared to having the deeper, more difficult discussions that a leadership team might need or resolving painful, seemingly pedantic points around culture. So yes, it’s a lot more fun to host co-creation workshops, hatch a new tagline or slogan, and design fresh visual assets that support the leader’s vision and stylistic preferences for culture.

In fact, as the 2021 FRC report on culture noted, one of the challenges faced in driving meaningful and sustainable culture change — and again, the FRC report invokes the board — is the commitment to continuous development, especially given that multi-year culture initiatives are likely to play out across leadership changes.

Creating a positive culture should improve performance. Trust, empathy and psychological safety are crucial to foster positive culture. Everyone should be encouraged to speak up, share concerns, and have candid conversations. However, the key challenge for companies and their boards is to acknowledge that culture requires patience, openness, and commitment to continuous development through any future changes to senior personnel.

In the section on making culture change a success, the FRC report writes, “One leader explained that culture change needs patience; it is a long journey of constant and consistent practices, while another one believes that deliverables can change, metrics can change, but everything that enables the deliverables will likely not change.” This is essentially our point that enduring ideals, not surface-level characterisations, ought to define culture and be amongst the enablers unlikely to change. The FRC report lists best practices to keep in mind:

• Nudging and evolving culture rather than going for wholesale change
• Working within the existing culture, particularly where there is a strong culture stemming from the company’s heritage
• Getting the language and comms right — there should be consistency in messaging and signalling, including active role modelling
• Engaging people in the change so they feel like they are a part of this process — consulted, not directed

Readers of this series may wonder whether we are contradicting ourselves. One one hand, we are arguing that leaders ought to deliberately and systematically shape culture; on the other hand, we are insinuating that cultural ideals ought not be changed — or at least not handily changed on account of comms plans or leadership transitions. So, which is it, and what are new or incumbent leaders meant to do? It depends on whether and to what extent the organisation has a robust culture framework.

• If one exists, then the question is not about coming up with a new set of ideals — purpose, principles, values — but rather about how to draw on and reinforce those through a deliberate comms campaign that lays out the leader’s expectations and puts his or her spin on how the organisation’s culture is key to success going forward.
• If there is a framework and a degree of socialisation and embedment, but perhaps there is room for change, then the question might be about fine-tuning the ideals rather than wholesale change. This provides for continuity. It is also an opportunity to amplify the rationale for any tweaks and highlight targeted shifts in mindsets and behaviours.
• If there is not a framework and/or the existing ideals are a poor fit, then perhaps a fresh start is warranted. In this case, as we will explore in a subsequent essay, there is merit in paying homage to the existing culture, particularly the parts distinctive of the organisation’s identity and that have played a role in past successes. Not only will this help preserve identity, but it also brings people along, acknowledging their previous efforts as a way of enrolling them in the change ahead.

In all of these scenarios, the advantage of a robust framework and an enduring set of ideals is that they provide a degree of institutional stability. As people come to understand, internalise, and ultimately think, act, and work in a way that comports with the ideals, they are much better positioned to support a new or incumbent leader’s ambitions around taking culture to the next level; and also to serve as stewards of any competitive edge that might derive from that organisation’s culture.

When this is all thoughtfully intertwined with the business strategy, the people strategy, and the learning strategy — and when a comms campaign supports rather than supersedes or subordinates — there is a significant opportunity to build both culture and capability at the same time.

Summary and What’s Next in this Series

This is the third essay in a 6-part series exploring culture in the post-pandemic era. In the first and second essays, we set the scene and framed the stakes, respectively. In this essay, we explored how leaders’ typical characterisations of culture are not mutually exclusive and how they are underpinned by very similar ideals at a human level.

Pairing these ideals with clarity and consistency of messaging that reinforces rather than changes or morphs them is required not only to get people moving in the same direction, but also to build and maintain goodwill and momentum around culture and to fend off scepticism that the organisatinon’s work on culture is a wallpapering exercise.

To make this argument, we made two key distinctions:

• Characterisations. This is the rhetorical level, and involves a set of aspirations and desired outcomes that leaders seek for their organisations and that comms teams gravitate towards when shaping messages and campaigns. These tend to be more complex and abstract in nature, and therefore more difficult for people to grasp how they can participate and contribute (i.e., “I agree that we need to be more inclusive and customer centric, but how can I do that?”).
• Ideals. This is the behavioural level, and is based on a set of principles, mindsets, behaviours, and unaccepted behaviours that individuals can more readily understand, internalise, and apply in the context of their everyday work. We have based these on the Inner Development Goals, or IDGs, which are skills and qualities that can be trained and nurtured (i.e., “If I can deepen my empathy and curiosity and sharpen my co-creation skills, then I can contribute to us being a more inclusive and customer-centric company.”).

In the next essay, we will explore how to define a culture framework so that its concepts are more practicable for people and more durable for the organisation, ensuring that the characterisations can evolve over time without breaking the framework’s conceptual integrity.

The final two essays will outline an implementation strategy using a top-down, bottom-up, and middle-out approach; and how to integrate all of this in the organisation’s HR and people strategies.

Note: This article was written with the assistance of ChatGPT. The authors provided prompts, outlines from research and experience, and other prepared materials, while ChatGPT generated language, helped to refine the text, and supported research/citation requests. The collaboration between the authors and ChatGPT highlights how the future of work will involve human-machine collaboration. For a copy of the transcript, email matt@matt-collier.com.