blog number 3

Shift Happens 2023
01 / Culture Design

Culture Design

An Invisible Structure that Holds us Together
Rituals are the core of every group of human beings. It includes shared habits and principles that unite and define it. We live in an age where the need for mutual identity and community as a tool for growth, is bigger than ever – and so, culture is becoming a significant design domain. In that sense, culture is an infrastructure of organizational processes and attitudes that encourage unconventional problem solving and self-improvement, thus binding the group even tighter. The ability to create a positive culture and nurture it is key in business success. So how can you do that?

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Face cultural difficulties and turn them into challenges

One misconception about Culture Design is that the more fun employees have during the workday, the more satisfied they are. Fun is important and it can make people stay but it doesn’t strengthen commitment or motivation, and it doesn’t erase the existing cultural difficulties. Don’t be intimidated by these difficulties; they can strengthen culture. Every business have them and it’s best to face them directly by turning difficulties into beneficial and constructional challenges. For example, a stressful project can turn into a challenge on how to enable creativity on a tight schedule. Challenging yourself and your employees is important to sustain their satisfaction and sense of meaning for longer periods.

Culture as a growth strategy

Obviously, culture affects employee’s motivation and productivity, but did you ever think about it as a growth strategy? Investing in an open, enabling culture is an investment in inner processes that eventually result in new or better products and services. Culture Design can be a growth strategy because it affects both inner audience and outer audience. The right organizational procedures will smooth the workflow and enhance productivity and will also develop employees that then develop game changing products and services. Aim to improve what you deliver to clients by improving your culture.

How does it connect to risks management and change?

The main idea of Culture Design is to balance contrastive elements in the workplace, and allow change lead to evolution. Balancing these elements can take many forms:

1. Designing procedures that will review the products both by quality and quantitative metrics.

2. Enabling fast and massy procedures alongside slow and strategic ones.

3. Giving creative freedom and autonomy to the employees while maintaining a high and cohesive standard.

Tips from our experts:

Map & Strategize

Culture design affect 5 different organizational aspects: procedures and methodology, human resources, infrastructure, content and wellbeing. A good way to start is to map the current state of each one of this five aspects, and then set goals that will get you closer to the ideal state.

Listen

to everyone. Occasionally stop the daily routine, take a step back and re-evaluate the culture.

Emphasize

understand what your employees need (not necessarily what they want) and respond to that.

Have fun

if the employees don’t have fun in what they are doing, then something isn’t right.

02

Service Design

TL;DR_
Leave room to fail, leave ego aside, stay aware and informed about changes as the happen and adjust.

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03

Purpose Design

TL;DR_
Use purpose as a resource, act with sensitivity and make your intentions visible.

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