By Bhakti Rawool
OCTOBER 8, 2020

In this COVID-19 pandemic, businesses across industries are facing exceptional challenges. On top of it now, we have to prepare ourselves to work remotely even post COVID-19 pandemic. As most of the employees do not want to return to offices and would prefer to work from home.

While working remotely it is high time for organisations to inculcate resilient growth culture that plays a key role in the business transformation. It not only helps individuals and organisations overcome adversity but also leads to sustainable growth by turning risks and challenges into opportunities.

Let’s begin with the basics. Let’s understand in simple terms, what is work culture?

When you search for a definition of Culture on the Internet, you get many definitions in different contexts. But the definition of ‘Culture’ as Verb in biological context is to maintain (tissue cells, bacteria, etc.) in conditions suitable for growth. And coincidentally, this definition applies to the work culture as well.

So finally, we get a very simple and apt definition for work culture- “Work Culture is the mindset required to maintain (organisation, teams and individual team members) in conditions suitable for growth.”

Now that we are very clear on definition of work culture or most appropriately we can say ‘growth culture’, the next step is to find the conditions that are suitable for growth of an organisation. Moreover, we need an innovative growth culture system that aligns all these conditions in a right way to achieve desired business growth.

Let’s understand the conditions in which the resilient culture of growth thrives.

1. Trust, empathy and safety

The most important and integral part of growth culture is to make your team members feel safe, valued, cared for and respected. Now, it is the right time for leaders and CEOs to take on the role of ‘Chief Empathy Officer’.

2. Alignment with the organisation’s values and mission (Right Fit)

In the growth oriented culture there is clear alignment of personal values, beliefs with the company’s values, goals, vision and mission. As a result, you get highly engaged and productive teams.

3. Finding a purpose and meaning at work

When every team member understands how his/her work contributes towards meeting team’s objectives and eventually fulfilling the organizational goals, that’s when team members feel meaning or sense of purpose at work.

4. Sense of ownership/ empowerment/ encouraging risk-taking ability

In high performing teams, team members take ownership of their work. They feel pride as they get the opportunity to prove their ability. When team members are encouraged to take risks, they always produce quality and innovative results.

5. Finding skill gaps and up-skilling

Defining core competencies that are relevant to the current times and mapping them gives you skill gaps. To bridge the gaps, the crucial part is up- skilling that includes business transformation skills, people skills, digital skills etc.

6. Continuous learning

To sustain in today’s competitive global marketplace the organisations need to be innovative, adaptive and flexible. Teams need to learn new skills, ideas and gain knowledge to bring innovative shifts in the products and services.

7. Bringing everyone on the same page

With the help of technology, a resilient and innovative growth culture system brings everyone on the same page in real-time. When we work in teams, to achieve shared purpose, it becomes very important to align all the conditions favourable for growth in such a way that everyone knows the status of progress in real-time. It works in the following manner.

a. Tracking of business goals with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

To achieve business goals, setting up of objectives that are measurable with few key results is the most crucial part. This goal management system improves focus, increases transparency and alignment with the business goals. The status of performance is updated frequently so that everyone knows the progress of goal achievement.

b. One-on-one check-ins to improve productivity

Now, technology has enabled us to mentor continuously. One-on-ones or continuous feedback is absolutely essential to discuss progress on goals, engagement and professional development in real-time. Frequent performance check-ins strengthens the bond between managers and team members by keeping them on the same page.

c. Recognition in Real-time

Recognition is the greatest motivation. Acknowledging team members and teams publicly will automatically infuse gratitude in the organisation. Recognizing them at the right time will make them feel more inclusive and valued. Growth culture system identifies the best performers and best performing teams in real-time. It recognises

1. High Potentials (HiPos)
2. Star performers
3. Internal brand ambassadors
4. Highly engaged, collaborative and productive teams
5. Team members whose productivity is increased substantially

d. Alignment of daily efforts/performance with business goal

Growth culture system helps to align your daily efforts or daily performance with the business goal/objectives. It finds the gaps if any so that you can take the right action to bridge it in real-time. So, everyone is aware about the direction in which they are heading in order to achieve the business goal.

e. Frequent feedback

To get quick insight into the mood/health of the work environment, values alignment, team productivity, mental and physical wellness frequent feedback is taken from team members. Actions are taken immediately to address the pain points.

f. Work-Life blend

While working from home or office the organisations that provide flexible work environment/policies that support the right blend of work-life for their team members will always have an edge over their competitors. Growth culture system makes sure that growth is always holistic with the right blend of work- life.

g. Transparency and openness

Transparency builds trust among team members and leadership. Open culture brings a feeling of ‘we are in this together’ that helps in understanding each other and builds a mutual trust. Digitisation of the growth culture system helps organisations to bring transparency in real-time.

In a growth culture system all these conditions are synchronised in such a way that you get holistic growth. It gives you the progression status of your business goals with the right set of measured conditions that are conducive for growth.

Need of ‘Resilient Growth Culture System’ to measure the impact of work culture on business growth

When we clearly define and measure above mentioned conditions and their right alignments to achieve growth, that’s when we are successful in nailing a resilient growth culture system.

Once you implement the growth culture system, it is the system itself that measures the impact of work culture on business outcomes. Since you are able to measure the impact, you know the gaps and now you are able to take actions in real-time to bridge those gaps to achieve the desired growth. The resilient growth culture system drives the high level of performance, engagement and collaboration needed for business transformation and growth.

Let’s build a resilient growth culture with a growth culture system!

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