If asked, almost every leader would say that culture is important to them. Culture became the buzzword of the year in 2014 and shows no sign of slowing down. And it’s been proven to be a big deal for business. According to a 22-year long study published in The Harvard Business Review, culture is shown to increase profit for a business by an average of %756. Given all this importance, we would expect every leader to have a solid culture plan, just like they have a business plan. All too often, this is not the case.

Deliberate planning for cultivating culture often falls to the way side, but it shouldn’t. And deliberate is the name of the game. If you aren’t spending time on the plan for what you want your culture to look like, how will you know when you get there? Or if you are far off track?

There are as many different ways to make a culture plan as there are leaders—and there should be; culture is never one size fits all. At cavnessHR Culture, we have a simple template that mirrors the most cutting edge thinking on business planning and serves as a framework to guide leaders through the culture-planning process.

Once you have a customized and achievable culture plan there are four important steps to implementation.

1.      Messaging the Plan to Your People

The best workplace cultures are the ones where every member of the team knows and embodies the values and knows the end goal of the culture plan. This mirrors any kind of operations planning—every member of the team should know the end goal. If we do messaging right, even the most novice member of the team will feel ownership and it gives everyone the ability to innovate and react to unexpected events.

Messaging happens in several ways. Having values posted in public areas. Having phrases that embody your culture and your goals that everyone is familiar with and uses often. And, most importantly, through the actions of the leaders. A great leader I know put it this way “What you ask to see and what is presented at meetings reveals what is important to your organization” (Colonel Scott Halter, US Army). I often tell leaders that I work with that your company’s values aren’t what you say they are, they are based on the reporting you require. Your people will prioritize what you tell them to—but only what you tell them to through actions. Your actions and reporting requirements will either reinforce or contradict your stated values.

2.     Measuring Your Culture

My favorite definition of organizational culture is: a complete index of every interaction that takes place amongst the members of your organization. I love it because it shows how truly complex culture is—there is no easy button. It also underscores the importance and the complexity of having metrics to track and measure the efficacy of your culture planning and implementation.

So, how are you measuring your culture on a daily basis? If the reporting that you require truly nests in with the organizations values, then you will have some ready made metrics. Want to foster a culture of innovation? Track how many experiences your people engage in during the work day. Want to guard against insular thinking? Require (and track) that 25% of ideas introduced at planning meetings are ‘borrowed’ from outside your organization. Want to tout work life balance to prospective employees? Ensure that management is not giving out work on Fridays with results due on Monday. There are a million ways to track, but the reality is, if it’s not measurable it’s rarely achievable—so track your values!

3.     Implement Checkpoints

So now you’ve implemented a whole bunch of new culture initiatives, leadership development programs and employee benefits. But how do you know whether any of it is having the desired effect? You have to have checkpoints along the way. If we’re being honest with ourselves as leaders, we never know whether a given initiative will have the desired effect. We have to be willing to check back in and shift direction as necessary.

How are you receiving feedback on culture? How are you creating room for your leaders to learn, perform and grow? And how does it align with your overall strategy? Every new program or initiative needs  checkpoints and time to evaluate the impact.

4.     Righting the Ship

This is the part that is the most intuitive, but is the hardest to do. If you’re off track, you need to adjust so that you are back on track. Easy, right? Of course, this is when we often find out that, as human beings as well as leaders, our pride can become involved, and we hesitate to admit when we’re wrong.

Building a culture of transparency, where not only does everyone understand the culture goals, but they also understand that, like any mission, you don’t know what you’ll find during implementation. If your people see you try your best, miss the mark, and adjust, they will learn that it is okay for them to do so as well. Spending time deliberately righting the ship when you are off course not only helps you get back on course, but it reemphasizes the importance of innovation, multi-faceted perspectives and the importance of making room for both failure and success.

At the end of the day, when it comes to something as complex as culture, nobody cares what you say. It’s your actions that determine the outcomes. So, you say culture is important to you? How much time do you spend planning, communicating, implementing and adjusting said culture? 

DANIELLA YOUNG IS AN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, CULTURE STRATEGY AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT AT CAVNESSHR. DANIELLA SPECIALIZES IN HELPING BUSINESSES CREATE A CUSTOMIZED ROADMAP TO THE GROWTH CULTURE THAT EVERY ORGANIZATION WANTS ACHIEVE, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. WANT TO LEARN MORE? CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE AN INTRO CALL.