False Flags of a Healthy Culture
The knotty and annoying thing about the concept of workplace culture is that it feels nebulous and hard to define. Because of this, it’s hard for people to diagnose when they have a problem. Similar to a medical diagnosis, it can be dangerous when you do it yourself: chances are high that you’ll miss key connections or overreact to a small ailment.
Here is an analogy.
Say you have a constant headache, numbness in your toes, and some muscle weakness. You likely look up each of these symptoms separately and thus try to treat them independently. You give yourself Excedrin for the headache, Dr. Scholes for your feet, and get a trainer to help with your strength. However, you miss that all of these symptoms are actually connected to your nervous system. All of the efforts you are making to treat them separately may mask the pain, but they won’t solve the problem because you aren’t diagnosing it correctly – you’re ignoring the underlying system that connects them all together.
We do the same thing with workplace culture. We treat seemingly disparate symptoms as one-offs rather than seeking a comprehensive diagnosis. The problem may be something other than your CRM or project management team–it may be your culture. But how do you know when it’s time to get a real diagnosis? How do you make sure to address the core issues presenting as small symptoms before they become really obvious engagement problems?
To start, look out for these false flags of a healthy culture.
1) Very high scores on engagement or cultural surveys
High scores are great, but they can be a false flag when you lack crucial conversations and/or accountability.
What this may mean then is that you have a team afraid to say what they think because either a) there isn’t psychological safety or belonging, or b) because they have zero confidence it will make any difference (i.e. leadership does not make any changes when confronted with reality.)
2) All deadlines are being met, no matter what
Having a perfect record of meeting deadlines feels really great, but if neither your team nor YOU are utilizing your vacation and sick time it may be a false flag.
In this scenario, what you potentially have is a culture that is afraid of failure, or that promotes and encourages busyness over efficiency.
3) Hearing “This is the best place I’ve ever worked”
It must feel great to be the best, but you have no idea where the bar started! There are a lot of toxic to mediocre workplace cultures out there. Just beating toxic doesn’t equal health.
In this instance, you may be accepting someone else’s definition of success and health as your own.
4) Everyone on your team has the same hobbies, interests, or personalities - aka you hire great for “fit”
This can be fun! You likely have a lot of great conversations, maybe folks even hang out together outside of work.
However, this may indicate that you have a comfortable or homogeneous culture, not a healthy or resilient one.
5) You (the leader) are the hero everyone turns to
It’s great to be a leader your team respects and admires, and you probably have a lot of skills and talents that are incredibly helpful! That’s why you are in the position you are in.
This may indicate however, that either a) you’ve hired people who are not equipped to do their jobs, b) people see it as easier to go to you rather than do it themselves (i.e. no accountability or fear of getting it wrong).
Please don’t treat this like WebMD and try to diagnose yourself. Even if you see a flag on the play, you may not have enough information to know what to do next. This hopefully sparks an interest to dive deeper, to not accept the easy “warm and fuzzies” as enough of a metric for cultural health.
Two ways you can get started if you see a flag on the play. First, talk to your people! You’d be amazed at what simply getting curious and asking questions like, “What don’t I know and what else could this be?” will get you. Second, schedule a professional check-up. The best way to get an accurate diagnosis is to bring in an expert – and I happen to know one!