At the start of the year, I enlisted the help of a personal trainer to try and improve my physical fitness. Being the other side of 40 I have reached the age where looking after my body suddenly feels both more important and challenging at the same time.
Previous methods to keep fit and healthy have lost impact and so it was time for a new strategy. It’s early days, but learning new exercises, even venturing into the weights room (an area in the gym I have never had the guts to go into before) and having someone to hold me to account, and I feel like I’m heading in the right direction (albeit a hilly terrain!).
As humans, working on our physical and mental fitness is a never-ending mission. There are ups and downs, times when we feel greater urgency than others, and moments where we rely more on the support and guidance from others.
However, whatever stage you’re at, when we proactively take accountability for working on ourselves the impact is more positive and sustained.
It might sound strange, but it’s the same when it comes to nurturing thriving workplace cultures.
Those shaping the best team and organisational cultures have great culture fitness – they understand that culture is constantly evolving. Just like our minds and bodies, a strong, healthy culture in one quarter can slip into toxicity in the next - unless there is deliberate focus and continuous hard work to keep it on track.
A workplace where people can thrive fuels long-term growth for people and businesses, and it’s only a few steps away.
Here’s what's fuelling their culture fitness:
1. An intentional focus on shaping great culture 🧭
They know thriving culture doesn’t just appear. In fact, left alone to our human biases, short-cuts and under the unfiltered influence of our egos, culture can naturally evolve into chaos. Those who shout loudest take charge, poor behaviours are over-looked, people keep their heads down to try and survive. The north star in culture fitness is an intentional focus and commitment to nurturing happy and healthy culture.
2. Strengthening foundations for growth 🏋️
Just as mental and physical health is built on balanced nutrition, sleep and social connection when it comes to culture being purpose-led, embedding fairness into everything and continuously facilitating feelings of psychological safety are critical foundations. Embedding systems and building skills to enable these pillars to shape decisions, interactions and experiences is an ongoing part of the routine.
3. Shape feel-good, effortless habits 🍎
Culture is the summation of our environments, the behaviours we reward and tolerate, and the habits we as individuals and teams engage in every day. Culture fit leaders recognise the importance of habits in shaping what people believe, think, feel and do. They see habits as an opportunity to quickly improve or shift culture towards growth, e.g. adopting new habits to improve regular and transparent communication or going first in seeking feedback to help build a growth mindset.
4. Regularly take the pulse 💓
Culture is live and dynamic, swirling around us constantly. Culture fitness requires staying in-tune with the dynamics by regularly pausing to take the pulse on culture. What are people experiencing? How does this make them feel? Where are the risks and opportunities and how can we act upon them to keep nurturing a thriving workplace? They take regular culture litmus tests such as talking to new hires or those choosing to leave and seeing what happens at key life stages and moments.
5. Great culture is never done! ♻️
Thriving workplace culture is so much more than values on the wall and annual engagement surveys. Those who are culture fit deeply understand this. They seek to experiment – listening to teams and networks to try out new ideas to keep improving – dropping things if they don’t work. They share great examples, identifying strong micro-cultures within the organisation or externally, promoting a shared approach to learning and collectively shaping great culture.
Those shaping the best team and organisational cultures have great culture fitness – they understand that culture is constantly evolving.
Like investing in your physical and mental health, when you choose to build your culture fitness the positive impact ripples across every aspect. A workplace where people can thrive fuels long-term growth for people and businesses, and it’s only a few steps away.
💪 What would make the biggest difference to your culture fitness? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
💬 Need a Culture Coach?
If you need some guidance or inspiration on how to get started, or perhaps you have a plan but want to work on your skills to ensure it lands well – get in touch with us at Make It Human - we would be delighted to be your Culture Coach!
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Or get started by reviewing our Top 10 Culture Lessons below...
