Culture wins

I’ve been reading a book on my Kindle lately entitled: Culture Wins: The Roadmap to an Irresistable Workplace. I was somewhat skeptical given the title, but the farther I have gone in the book, the more I understand the thrust of the writer’s argument (who, by the way, was a pastor, before creating his own startup).
William V simply argues that at the end of the day, it’s the context, the ‘culture’ that causes a company, a group, a mission to retain their workers. It’s the environment that causes people to want to stay long term with you, to recruit others to work with them, and to always speak highly of your organisation even if they move on to another ‘job’. It’s primarily because of the culture and how it makes them feel, how it makes them more productive and fruitful in their work.
Of course, the difficulty comes when our “culture” needs to be worked out in practice. We know that it is easier to talk about culture than to actually function according to the principles or elements of that desired culture.
World Team (based on the WT Ministry Framework) desires an organisational culture where we grow in accountability, character, competence, collaboration and community. We are probably doing well in some elements, and maybe less well in others. What I have gotten out of this book, so far, is that we should not be content with where we are, but strive to grow more in all elements of our desired culture. So that who we say we are, is how we actually live and minister together.
From where you stand, in which elements would you say we are doing well and in which elements less well?
Filed under: Cultural intelligence, Guiding Principles | 2 Comments »