Getting culture right - the perils of PowerPoint

It is incredibly easy to be cynical when we hear businesses talk about culture. At one point or another, most of us have shuffled into a room with colleagues to experience a PowerPoint presentation on our firm's culture. They can often be (a) generic, anodyne and marketing-led, or (b) aspirational, unrealistic and not reflective of leadership and/or street-level behaviour.

We often end up with some version of the caricatures above not through bad intentions, but because building, maintaining, evolving and communicating an effective culture is hard. Understanding how to do this well is absolutely critical for any organisation or team.

It's important for many reasons, but particularly because our decision-making doesn't occur in a vacuum. It is inescapably framed by the environment and culture in which we operate. If you want to encourage good behaviour and decision-making, thinking about culture is essential. Just not that easy.

To try and make it easier, in this episode of Decision Nerds, we tackle culture and decision-making with WCM Investment Management. They have some fascinating insights as the assessment of a company's culture forms a key part of their decision-making. They have also thought exhaustively about how to structure their own culture to make better choices. 

We cover a range of important topics: 

The need for alignment between culture and strategy

Is scale the enemy of culture? 

Should culture evolve through different business/operating environments?

Where and how can culture go sour?

What does management often get wrong when talking about culture? 

Is Glassdoor data useful?

How does culture impact decision-making at WCM?

What's the most practical way to take the cultural temperature of a company?

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:05 WCM and culture
• 2:36 How to define culture
• 5:01 How companies can talk about culture more effectively
• 6:27 Trade-offs between breadth and depth of culture communication
• 8:34 Alignment between culture and strategy
• 10:10 Where and how disparate cultures work
• 12:12 Enablers of culture
• 18:07 Is scale the enemy of culture?
• 21:36 Frictions - keeping shareholders and employees happy
• 24:42 Should culture be stable through different business environments?
• 28:10 How can culture be measured and assessed?
• 30:35 Is there too much selection bias in Glassdoor data?
• 31:40 What lessons have WCM learned in culture assessment?
• 35:02 Parsimony challenge! If you only had one data point on culture, what would it be?
• 35:56 What steps should management take to assess and manage culture?
• 39:25 Observed patterns when cultures go sour
• 42:25 Can aspirational 'world class' culture aims do more harm than good?
• 44:29 How does culture impact decision-making at WCM?
• 49:03 Carrots and sticks - incentives at WCM
• 53:44 Companies - cultural ambitions and alignment of incentive structures
• 56:02 What's the most practical way to take the cultural temprature of a company?
• 1:00:15 What books do you suggest reading if you want to understand culture better?