Looking For Clues
There’s been a lot of stuff about culture on social media this week, it seems to have been alighted on as the latest silver bullet for the organisational malaise that is causing several people to say ‘sod this for a bunch of soldiers’ and resign (a phenomena the media have creatively dubbed ‘The Great Resignation’).
I’ve previously written about culture and silver bullets (TL:DR They’re both a load of bollocks), but I did like my mate Geoff Marlow’s reframing of ‘culture’ as ‘'normative behaviour control methodology’. This methodology is reinforced by the process of ‘hiring for cultural fit’, which will exclude all the people who might bring the benefits sought by the new culture, such as creativity, innovation, agility and fresh thinking.
But hey, there’s plenty of management consultancies lining up to throw life-belts at drowning CEOs. Even if they were the ones that opened the sea cocks on the ship in the first place.
Whatever problem they think ‘culture’ is going to fix, I reckon that they’d get a lot further by treating their people with trust, respect and compassion, reward them fairly and stop being arseholes.
I’m sure McKinsey’s can turn that into a catchy mnemonic and nifty model.
You’re in love with a Psycho
It’s not that there isn’t a problem with ‘culture’. People’s perception of ‘culture’ is formed by their daily experience of the workplace, by their interactions with their colleagues and their boss(es). This means everyone has a different perception of culture (which is my problem with talking about culture as a single homogeneous thing because that doesn’t exist). What is evident is that for the majority (i.e. over 50%) the culture they experience is poor and that's why they are looking to change their jobs.
In fact, most often the problem is the boss, who sets the tone (or ‘culture’, if you insist) for the team. The question, then, is why are so many bosses so awful?
It seems that perfectly good people change their behaviour when they get promoted, and not in a good way. Now, it could be they are simply copying their bosses and the way that they were treated, or that they have not been trained properly, or they are not really suited to a managerial role or a whole host of other things. Fundamentally, though, it is because of the system that they operate in.
In many organisations, the system promotes, enables and rewards bad behaviour. The further you go up the hierarchy, the more psychopathic the behaviours that the system encourages. Whilst it is true there is a much higher proportion of psychopaths at the top of organisations than in the general population, it is the adoption of psychopathic behaviours by everyone else that is the real problem (obviously, these come naturally to psychopaths, which is why they end up at the top).
What we get is lots of good people doing bad things. That’s what employees are finally kicking back against, having been distanced from it for a while by working from home.
The correction is to change the system so that it promotes, encourages and rewards positive, pro-social behaviours. It’s not fannying around with ‘culture’.
(You Gotta ) Fight For Your Right (To Party)
How can I talk about culture without reference to that revealed to have been prevalent in No.10 Downing Street by Sue Grey’s report into ‘Partygate’?
The picture painted is not a pretty one but it is a direct reflection of the character and behaviour of the Prime Minister, who clearly sets the tone for government but even more so for No.10, where he both works and lives.
The sheer number of parties that were held whilst the rest of the country was under lock-down rules set by the party-goers themselves is astonishing enough. However, reports have also emerged of a wine fridge being purchased for ‘Wine-down Fridays’, staff being sent out with a suitcase to get more booze, senior staff ‘DJ-ing’ at a party, a child’s swing being broken by revellers and events going on into the early hours.
Sue Grey puts it in more soberly tones
some gatherings “represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time
There were failures of leadership and judgment
Some of the events should not have been allowed to take place. Other events should not have been allowed to develop as they did.
The excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time. he workplace.”
Some staff wanted to raise concerns “but at times felt unable to do so”
That’s a pretty damning commentary on the culture - and it’s not even the full report.
This culture did not exist under previous PMs of any stripe, it’s only been like this under Johnson. His own lack of morality, principle, application, attention to detail, care, sense of duty; his own sense of entitlement, disregard for the rules, oversight or constraint of any kind; his mendaciousness and pathological lying (this is not my opinion, these are the views of friends and colleagues and supported by facts) has, by some form of moral contagion, infected the entire operation in No.10.
This is evidence of the wisdom of the old Italian saying “A fish rots from the head” but it also points to the disproportionate amount of damage a bad leader can have. The higher they are in the organisation, the greater the damage they will wreak.
It’s not just that a bad apple will spoil the barrel (another truism) but that some apples will spoil the barrel a lot faster and more completely.
It’s also true that it’s a lot easier for a bad manager to spoil the culture than it is for a good manager to create a good culture, let alone repair the damage. Even if the Tories jettison Johnson tomorrow, the fabric of the party will take an awful long time to repair.
It only takes a moments thoughtlessness to stain your clothes, it takes a lot of effort to wash the stain out - if that’s even possible (That’s enough analogies. Ed.) (They’re like buses, you wait weeks for one and then three come along at once. Ed.) (Oh, Bugger. That’s definitely enough now. Ed.)
And here’s an entertaining little number about this from PoliticsJOE
Pincushion
If we look at the senior ranks of most organisations, I fear we see rather more ‘Johnsons’ than is desirable.
Some are led by massive Johnsons (Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, for example), others have many small Johnsons spread throughout the management structure.
Some deliberately recruit Johnsons. By choosing people like them a Johnson can perpetuate the preponderance of Johnsons. Others enable Johnsons and, in so doing, force otherwise quite reasonable people to start behaving like Johnsons in order to survive and get on.
Johnsons breed Johnsons, literally and metaphorically.
It’s hard to see how we decrapify work when the people who hold the power are Johnsons. I believe that junior and middle managers do have the power to effect change, and we all have the power to improve our own environment (our sphere of control) but if the top of the organisation is full of Johnsons, they will be an obstacle to major change.
However, we know it’s possible to have better, more human, more equal work places. We used to have them and they can be brought back again.
But, like the Prince seeking to revive Sleeping Beauty from her slumber, we will have to fight our way past a bunch of pricks to get to the happy ending.
(Yes, I went there.)
(Oi! I said no more analogies! Ed.)