Remember 10 years ago when we all first heard of open plan offices and the colourful stuff Google was installing that really spoke to your inner child?

Oh, the kings of culture they were, with their Head of Happiness, Chief of Joy, and McDonalds-esque ball pool.

Other big corporates were miffed they didn’t think of that first, and small businesses made it their benchmark of “how we will know we have hit success” – because we can only cope with so many growth charts before they begin to blur before our caffeinated eyes.

Insert here, the team building exercises that we semi-enjoy not because it means we will like or trust Karen from accounts any more than we did yesterday, but because we can put our pile of deadlines aside for a day.

Culture is one of those awkward subjects.

How does one measure the current status of it, and track whether the various techniques tried have a long-term impact vs. just give everyone a dopamine hit?

There are lots of great gurus around culture.

Simon Sinek springs to mind, with his talk that everyone hopes will be the missing key for their company.

Lots of great books, too, surely.

And it is probably a skill or theme that can be developed.

However, most companies with toxic culture struggle to pivot into a healthy happy one, and all the books in the world won’t cut it.

Why, mum?

Simple actually.

Most people trying to do the fixing of culture are managers and leaders who are used to functioning off logic, rationale, and hiring and firing. Keeping the company afloat at all costs.

Whereas culture, the snazzy daredevil, hides in the shadowy depths of things like feelings, rapport, and empathy.

Oh, heck please. Not empathy.

Get that word OUT of here and get back to work.

Sorry, it stays.

Culture is something that works from the top down; and pity the poor fool who tries to do it the other way around if the company is large, rigid, or old school.

THAT is where good ol’ Simon, bless his heart and hope his message doesn’t die, comes into play.

Let us sum up one of his glorious theories as best we remember it:

Don’t hire first according to skill or experience, find out if they bleed the same purpose as your company. Outside of ambitiously helping profits or advancing their position, do they dream of bringing the same impact into the world that your company stands for?

Which is a bit of a hard exercise if your company is driven by profit more than purpose, so maybe start with defining you purpose first.

Points won if you could say it to a 10-year-old and they would get it without losing interest.

Points lost if you use the following words: excellence, customers, service, best, top, maximizing, profitable, quality.

Because that is so generic your business savvy ancestors would turn in their grave while the 10-year-old interrupts your drivel to ask Can they watch videos on your smartphone please?

Righty.

Back to culture and other yoghurt related business.

Look if you are having to manufacture it via playgrounds and team building exercises, you are missing the point.

Which is: make people feel comfortable, excited, needed, and respected.

Give or take, that is it.

Yep! Crazy, really.

If you need something to model off, think back to the schooldays of your youth.

Do you remember that one teacher you had?

The whole class vied for that teacher’s attention and thought they were the luckiest lot in school.

He or she barely needed to take disciplinary action because you all would have taken a bullet for such a leader as this.

Work was fun and it got DONE!

It was worth it because you knew you would get recognition.

Mr or Mrs I Would Take A Bullet For was fair to everyone and mediation was a rarely required.

But even if there were differences between students, it would be resolved purely because Mr or Mrs I Would Take A Bullet For was the one asking you to, and letting such an icon down was more painful than losing the fight.

The class was colourful and interesting activities were introduced, sure; but it was Mr or Mrs I Would Take A Bullet For that was colourful – because they provided rapport, empathy, mutual respect.

Look, if you have no such teachers to recall we are sorry. There is no known support group for that loss.

But hopefully you bumped into such a leader in your career; whether you worked alongside, under, or as a supplier/client.

These leaders keep a good balance of knowing just enough of what goes on in your life to pick up when something is off and show extra grace during hard times. They know not to yell at you for zoning out because you were incredibly depressed by a death in your circle. They help you figure out the priorities so you can keep going with your workload. They make arrangements for your colleagues to pick up the details if you start to drop them or outsource the small stuff until you can fully dedicate yourself again.

And guess what? You appreciate that. Your gratitude becomes fortitude. You want to honour that they stood by you, so you put more into your work.

You start to pay it forward. You help others pick up their details if they get dropped. You throw in a thank you or kudos to someone who goes unnoticed.

And so the ball rolls, like a big old beautiful game of Dominoes with your grandfather.

Culture: the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.

Also culture: maintain (tissue cells, bacteria, etc.) in conditions suitable for growth.

I think trouble companies and start-ups would do well to start looking at the second definition, and in doing so, will stumble into practicing a healthy version of the first definition.

Because culture is a thing that is planted, nurtured, and grown.

There is a reason Kombucha is such a thing – because it has such good culture.

Like bacteria, there are cultures we benefit from, and cultures which kill us.

Like bacteria, once it gets going, there may be no stopping it.

Culture is the environment and conditions that make us tolerate even the worst job, because we still feel like we are personally thriving and a part of growth.

It makes people volunteer to take one for the team, and that reason alone is why companies need to stop looking at culture like an ambiguous thing that millennials whine about.

Imagine if water-cooler bickering was replaced with people ready to step up and step in at a moment’s notice, people who put the interests of the company ahead of their own career gains, people who stuck around when the going got tough?

Yeah, you should probably watch that Simon Sinek talk again. And all his other ones.

But more seriously, think hard about what traits you want in your leaders, managers, and general staff, and get your HR people on board with that.

Find out who the people running the company on a day to day basis really are and how they can be better supported.

Start with reflecting on what you could do to be more like Mr or Mrs I Would Take A Bullet For, for your team. Hone those qualities.

Chill out and be human for a minute – there is always a recession around the corner, and that is when good, strong culture will have your back.

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