11 Tools to Put Your Cultural Virtues Into Practice

“Culture only works if the leader visibly participates in and vocally champions it.” — Ben Horowitz

In the previous post of this series, I covered how to perform a culture audit to understand what’s unique about your organization, what’s strong in your current culture, and what’s missing. You can read it here:

If you’re new to this series, you should start back at the beginning. Catch up here:

Once you’ve established the wants and needs of your organizational culture, it’s time to get down to brass tacks and start implementation. I may be stating the obvious here, but building and changing culture doesn't happen overnight. It takes years of effort and leadership design, but by following the tools outlined below, you can start putting your cultural virtues into practice.

Cultural Familiarization

If you want your organization to behave a certain way then it makes sense to tell them explicitly. As the saying goes, “you only have one chance to make a first impression,” so your first step is to incorporate some form of cultural familiarization into new-hire orientation. This is your first and best opportunity to set the tone and let your new employees know what the organization is all about.

Set the example

This should be obvious, I hope. You must lead by example. No culture can thrive, regardless of how great its design, unless the leader who implements it shows a passion and energy for it. If you don’t practice the virtue yourself, then don’t expect it to become part of the culture you’re trying to implement. Inconsistent behavior will undermine everything you’re trying to do.

“Do as I say, not as I do never works… what you say means far less than what you do.” — Ben Horowitz

Provide context

Help your employees remember your virtues by providing the context behind each one and what it means to the organization. When the team understands the “why” it gives the virtue meaning and purpose. The context prevents them from merely memorizing a list and helps them understand the best way to make the organization a success.

Hold focus groups

A great way to layer on the context is to hold focus groups. Break down each virtue and bring small groups together to discuss what it means to them. You can even create booklets or guides that break each virtue down into component parts, with examples to help drive the context home.

Governing directives

This is more than a code of conduct posted on the company’s website. It needs to be an encompassing set of rules meant to dictate how people behave. The samurai had Bushido which provided specific guidance, on and off the battlefield. The honor and discipline attributed to the samurai warrior class were in large part due to the Bushido governing their way of life.

Keep these 3 points in mind to ensure your directives are effective:

1. Your rule must roll off the tongue. Bushido was mostly unwritten for hundreds of years, yet it was still effective in governing samurai behavior. That’s because the rules were easy to remember through the use of stories and parables.
2. Your teams must understand the context behind the rule. Force them to ask themselves, “why?”
3. Strike the right balance of rule specificity. They should be specific enough so there’s little room for interpretation, but not so specific that they hardly ever apply. If it doesn’t need to be used frequently and often, then no one will remember it exists. Use practical examples where you can so that employees more easily understand.

One example of a governing directive that meets these criteria- Amazon’s no PowerPoint rule. In his 2017 Letter to Shareholders, Jeff Bezos explained his approach:

“We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos. We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of “study hall.” … They are brilliant and thoughtful and set up the meeting for high-quality discussion.” — Jeff Bezos

As you can see, this meets all three of our criteria for a good governing directive:

1. It’s simple and easy to remember.
2. The context behind it is clear- memos are more thoughtful than slides and set up a meeting for high-quality discussion.
3. Daily meetings mean the employees encounter the rule often, so it’s constantly on their minds.

One of my favorite examples of a creative governing directive is from Ben Horowitz’s book, What You Do Is Who You Are, which discusses instilling a culture of respect. To do this, he did not focus on respect per se, but on being on time for meetings. Ben says:

“If you were late for a meeting with an entrepreneur, you had to pay a fine of ten dollars per minute. Avoiding the fine took practice and hard work, and embedded a number of great habits into our culture. You had to plan your previous meeting correctly, so it wouldn’t conflict with the meeting with the entrepreneur. You not only had to end that meeting with discipline, but you had to run it with discipline, so everything got done in the time allotted. You had to avoid being distracted by random texts or emails. You even had to think about when to go to the restroom.”

In the end, he says he never really collected a lot in fines, but it went a long way in building a culture of respect. This is an example of a perfect governing directive.

Deconflict using ethics

Over time, as your cultural virtues and norms grow, there will be instances where they conflict. For example, the virtue of “putting the client first” may conflict with “doing the right thing” if the client is asking for something illegal. You need to deconflict these ahead of time by placing ethics and integrity above all else. In other words, not all virtues are created equal. As I mentioned under governing directives, use practical examples and specific rules to address conflicts ahead of time and avoid ambiguity in the moment. Keep in mind that it’s next to impossible to design a culture without these conflicts, but it’s imperative you address as many as possible ahead of time. In the end, you must be explicitly clear with what your organization must never do by prioritizing your cultural virtues.

Go deep

Don’t use surface-level platitudes that have no meaning. Go deep and use virtues that stand out from the norm. Remember, your culture needs to be memorable. Give your virtues deeper meaning so that they’ll have a real impact. This goes back to context, forcing your employees to ask “why” and ensuring they are equipped with the answer.

Incorporate your virtues into the decision-making process

If you’re faced with a decision where the culture comes into question, make sure your employees see how you use your cultural virtues to help make the decision- especially if it’s a tough one. Seek out ways in which you can use your virtues to demonstrate cultural priorities.

Let’s go back to my example where “put the client first” conflicts with “doing the right thing.” Go one step further and offload clients who would even put you in a position where you had to make that call. This is all about prioritizing your culture in the long-run by potentially sacrificing short-term deals and financial wins. By doing so you ensure the long-term viability of the organization because nothing can bring a company down faster than a toxic culture.

Be mindful of outsiders

Your virtues should serve as a holistic guide for how to behave. Not just behavior inside the company, but outside as well. The way you and your employees treat clients and outsiders will impact the culture inside the company. The behavior of you and your team should be universal. This is because behavior outside the workplace is often indicative of how a person most likely behaves at the office as well. We’re simply not that good at compartmentalizing.

Keep top of mind

The best way to instill a culture in your organization is to keep it on the top of their minds, continuously exposing the team to your virtues. The best way to do that is by holding frequent meetings. I like to use a Lean management technique called daily huddles to accomplish this. Huddles are 5 to10-minute meetings to cover the day’s work, but I find it’s the perfect time to reiterate virtues and expected behaviors.

Create a sense of urgency

Any time you create a sense of urgency, people will move quickly to implement that change. Make your employees feel the need to hold themselves to the standards set in your culture. You can do this effectively by addressing the cynics and providing incentives.

Cynics: The cynics are difficult because if they don’t get on board, the only real option is to let them go. This won’t be easy, but it sends a clear signal to the rest of the organization on what the new culture is all about.

Incentives: On the bright side, you can use incentives to help drive certain behaviors. Whether that’s awards or bonuses, figure out some way to reward and reinforce the behavior you want.

I’ve mentioned this already, but it’s worth repeating: culture is not a “set it and forget it” thing. You need to be constantly vigilant and focused, and not just when you’re first championing your new culture. You will face threats to it constantly- in the way your employees behave, in the way you behave, and in the way you respond to external events. Check out the next and final post in this series on how to fend off threats to your culture, both internal and external.

Jared Chaffee is a US Navy Veteran, ex-Submarine Officer, and founder of Chapters & Interludes and First Principles Leadership. He currently works in financial services for a large bank. His writing is based on his extensive leadership experience- from operating a $420 million submarine to catering to multi-million dollar hedge fund clients. He’s passionate about leading and mentoring others, using his mistakes and lessons from past failures to answer all of your leadership and strategy questions on life and business.