Some organizations spell culture with a ‘p,’ making pulture. The p stands for pretend, as in:
- Leadership pretending to care about the work force
- People pretending to give their best effort
- Customers pretending they’re loyal to your product (as they test the competitor).
If you’re at a company where culture is spelled with a ‘p,’ beware of what some will try to sell you. They’ll claim that to spell culture correctly you must:
- Strengthen decision-making processes
- Advance rewards and recognition
- Build new facilities.
While these and other steps do influence the thinking and behaviors within organizations, there’s a long list of companies that have taken such actions only to see minimal improvement. That’s because they still spell pulture; those actions only pretend to address these important truths:
- Pleading the workforce to care more about the customer when teammates don’t care about one another is a waste of time
- If the workforce doesn’t believe those who sit on the top floor authentically care about them, then employees care less about how the work is done.
- Money can’t buy the caring needed for quality work. It only buys skinnier wallets and bigger headaches.
Culture is spelled with a ‘c,’ not a ‘p.’ The illusive ‘C’ in culture is caring. In our new book, Do Big Things, we share the research that shows what every team that’s ever done anything significant knows: It’s the human imperative, where people truly care about one another, that’s required to deliver your business imperative.
If you have the courage to go for it, you can get an advanced copy of the book here. If you do, you should know this: The book is going to challenge the way some of your teammates think about how to do meaningful work. Which is what’s necessary to put the ‘C’ in culture.
How does your organization spell culture?
