S7 E9-12. (Engaging Your People for Success) Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability with Lisa Askwith- Engaging Your People for Success

S7 E9-12. (Engaging Your People for Success) Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability

Lisa Askwith- Engaging Your People for Success
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Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability- 4 Part series

• 1- Did my Strategy eat my Culture?- Diagnose your pain points- 5 key metrics
• 2- Culture Builders- 10 steps to help your Culture flourish
• 3- Strategy and Culture should be symbiotic, here's how- 8 steps to integration
• 4- Strategy and culture for Business Sustainability- 10 focus areas

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INTRODUCTION
Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability
Part 1 (EP 9)-  Did my Strategy eat my Culture?- Diagnose your pain points

So often we see the needs behind developing a positive culture that empowers people through engagement forgotten in the rush to do business and make money. Now don’t get me wrong, you definitely need to make money in the business otherwise you fail yourself and your people, but there comes a point in every business's lifecycle where the culture is critical for either long term success, improvement, or revenue generation. Typically once a business is up and running and the original founders are moving into defined roles and more employees come on board the culture really starts to solidify……..for better or worse! 

Similarly in an established business, culture needs constant monitoring and engagement to keep it at a high and beneficial level……..culture whilst self-sustaining for a period of time needs exceptional leaders, and a sound long term plan to stay valuable and positive……just as a good business strategy needs constant reviews and discussion to be successful, a culture is the same. This is a key point that many business leaders miss………and hence great cultures often only last for short periods of time, as they are often sacrificed to the focus on strategy.

When I say sacrificed, I am not saying it is a deliberate shift of focus, more often than not it is an unconscious one, as the leadership team have become used to working in a great culture and don’t realise that it needs constant attention to keep it that way. When this happens people start to revert to type, and the highly driven leaders start to focus on metrics, and forget to put a similar level of focus and time into maintaining and further developing a great culture that can drive the business forward. This is when I start to see the phrase of Culture eats strategy for breakfast flip around and become strategy eats, and often steamrolls culture and leaves the business in a mess

 
To help diagnose the pain points in your business, review; 

• Disengaged staff,
• High staff turn over,
• Silo thinking and mentality,
• Increased sick leave,
• Lack of accountability, Blame culture,
• Bullying, Nepotism
• High performing staff are leaving rather than taking a promotion
• Long serving staff only in one part of the business
• No innovation
• Leadership has been the same for over 10 years
• Staff not accessing learning and development
• Deadlines constantly being missed or push further out
• No feedback from the floor- ever

2 Key tools

Use Culture Surveys and 360 degree leadership feedback to diagnose where you are now. The results from these 2 key tools will allow you to really understand the pain points, as well as identify those that may not be talked about in the open. Then you can start to understand the scope of the problem, and have the opportunity to be able to turn it around and allow your culture to once again flourish backed by a strong and supportive strategy.

5 key metrics for culture and strategy integration

There are several key metrics you need to ensure that are part of your strategy and culture continue to be aligned. Start with the basics of attrition and length of stay and then build from there to include loss past training, average length of workers across business units and compare this all to the competition. You need an industry benchmark to really help you understand where you can change effectively. .These numbers must be part of your regular leadership meetings to ensure they embed in strategy and create the space for culture to be constantly assessed and supported.

This is the piece of the puzzle that most businesses and leaders need help with. If you have reached this point do contact me directly at lisa@apexbrs.com for a free no obligation discussion of just where you are and how we may be able to help.


Tags; strategy and culture, aligning culture and strategy, strategy implementation, strategy vs culture, culture and strategy, business strategy, strategic planning, strategy software, humantelligence alignment, organizational culture, cultural change, strategy cascade, strategy, culture, align team goals, objectives, technology, people

Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability- Part 2 (EP10)
Culture Builders- 10 steps to help your Culture 

1. Working Teams to diagnose issues and put in place plans
2. Leadership development that mirrors down to all staff- Are people leaders reskilling quickly enough to be relevant or are they becoming impediments of Future organizations?
3. Company wide initiatives that involve values
4. Regular rewards and recognition for culture initiatives and outcomes
5. Transparent performance reviews and access to further training
6. Open and regular communication at all levels
7. Leaders who walk the talk and actually become involved at the ground
8. A complete package that mirrors through from initial job training all the way through to continuous discretionary upskilling that is also tied to career development both upwards and laterally.
9. D&I embedded to become the ‘norm’
10. Corporate Social Responsibility- shared and celebrated engaging everyone

Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability Part 3 (EP11) 
Strategy and Culture should be symbiotic, here's how


Have you really looked at your culture, does it match your strategy? If the answer is no, then you will run into a lot of problems that will cost your business in terms of money as well as people and innovation. Throughout this season of engaging your people for success I will talk about Culture a lot, and focus on how the leadership team can help you have one that is beneficial to your business outcomes. Culture, leadership and people are core topics that I passionately believe can make or break your business.

8 Steps to integrate culture and strategy symbiotically
 

1. Use the results from your culture survey and 360 degree feedback
2. Develop working teams to check the results ad decide on key route cause issues to work with
3. Set in motion a culture action team and plan
4. Strengthen all internal communications- this means open and regular, plus accessible leadership team
5. Start a method where staff can anonymously raise issues- and have them addressed!
6. Develop your leadership training plan- every year requirements for all senior leaders plus new leaders training.
7. Develop a mentoring program
8. Develop a shadow Board

Tags; strategy and culture, aligning culture and strategy, strategy implementation, strategy vs culture, culture and strategy, business strategy, strategic planning, strategy software, humantelligence alignment, organizational culture, cultural change, strategy cascade, strategy, culture, align team goals, objectives, technology, people


If you would like more information on any of these key topics I can be reached at lisa@apexbrs.com, where you can book a free discovery call




Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability- Part 4 (EP12)

Strategy and culture for Business Sustainability


To build your Culture and Strategy to become symbiotic is key to your long term business successes and hence sustainability. However, many businesses overlook this key next step. Don't let your business suffer, take the next step and build sustainability too!

Mark Emmer, gave a fantastic overview of 10 key steps to a killer strategy, and it allows me to add what that means for your culture, so you can ensure the 2 are working together symbiotically, and you achieve business sustainability; these were


1. Develop a true vision.

Culture- make sure the vision is more than a document on the wall it must be living and breathing- KPI’s, rewards, internal documents, JD’s it must be talked about and interwoven through all of this, and include behavioral aspects

2. Define competitive advantage.

Culture- Are you people able to raise their voice and add to this. Has this been expanded beyond the leadership team- use your greatest asset, your people to help you here and you will see your culture grow symbiotically with your business plan/strategy.

3. Define your targets.

Culture- Are your targets communicated to everyone? Or is it just sales? If you want to build a culture that everyone can feel proud of they need to be connected to the overall objectives too. How are the rest of your people encouraged and engaged to help drive these targets, are they recognised? You need more than sales targets controlled by sales people to generate a culture across the business, others need to be engaged too. This can be key parts of their KPI’s, special projects or shared work. All will help your culture evolve and be supported by your strategy.

4. Focus on systematic growth.

Culture- This is a key culture builder that drives synergy. You can gain so much from your strategy supporting your culture on this point, do not miss it in your business!!!!
You people are your greatest asset, so make sure you allow them to show that. They have some much experience and many ideas that are easily overlooked that if harnessed can lead to massive gains for any business. Allow your people to help drive your growth, have a shadow board, allow for working teams, source new ideas from the floor and support them through leadership and working teams, have agile focus groups, have new idea focus groups, rotate these, the list goes on. 

5. Make fact-based decisions.

Culture- Allow and expect your people to present facts, develop them to look for the right data, have appropriate training courses available, have appropriate resources available, teach agile thinking. Build all of this into your strategy.

6. Think long term.

Culture- Set agile quarterly reviews, develop an agile mindset through training and encourage your people to challenge assumptions and reset as often as needed. Remove excuses and embrace change. Encourage change and remove fear from speaking up. Develop your leaders through agile training and ensure they are also trained as coaches, and your culture will blossom being supported by all these points being embedded in your strategy.

7. But, be nimble.- Agility is key

Culture- Make Agility a core value and build it into your leadership KPI’s, this will then trickle down through the business. Support it positively and reward new ideas and change plus ensure your people are involved.

8. Be inclusive.

Culture- Make D&I a key part of your strategy, without doing this it will not live in your business. Include it in leadership KPI’s but more importantly train your leaders to not only challenge assumptions but to learn how to challenge their own fixed mindset. Train the value of mixed teams and different backgrounds. Train the value of cross functional work. Have internal metrics set up to monitor how long people stay in the same role and make sure they are trained in other areas if this passes xx years.

9. Invest time in pre-work.

Culture- Support your people, allow them adequate time to prepare regardless of the situation, encourage transparency and honesty, reward it and make it part of your strategy and your culture will evolve.

10. Measure your results and execute excellently.

Every strategy should be actionable- this translates directly to culture objectives and integration. 

Companies that are best-in-class:

• Have a strategic action plan that they track often (usually monthly).
• Promote common ownership of the plan across executives and departments.
• Utilize key performance indicators (KPIs) that are predictive and align directly with the strategic plan.
• Have cascading goals that reach every department and resonate with employees so they understand how their role contributes to the greater good.
• Set up their corporate calendar to promote productive meetings, and establish a performance management cycle that supports cascading goals and objectives to every employee.
• Rinse and repeat their strategy cycle every year.

Tip- Exceptional leadership is the glue that will hold all of this together- without it you will not achieve the levels you desire.

This is the piece of the puzzle that most businesses and leaders need help with. If you have reached this point do contact me directly at lisa@apexbrs.com for a free no obligation discussion of just where you are and how we may be able to help.

Tags; strategy and culture, aligning culture and strategy, strategy implementation, strategy vs culture, culture and strategy, business strategy, strategic planning, strategy software, humantelligence alignment, organizational culture, cultural change, strategy cascade, strategy, culture, align team goals, objectives, technology, people

 
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Written by Lisa Askwith

Director of ApexBRS | ApexBRS, Regional Director of See Global Media, Chair of  EGN Singapore, and Associate Professor Cambridge Corporate University | At the Age of Change, providing the HR component of the Global Executive MBA and BBA. Lisa has worked for some of the largest companies in the world and successfully led restructures and change management programs in order to improve the bottom line through engaging the people for success, while developing exceptional leaders who can make a positive impact on Culture and long term business sustainability.

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