Culture Always Wins

I’ve read books and listened to podcasts on multiple occasions that have covered the topic of culture.  It’s a topic that I’ve sought to get my arms wrapped around as I’ve seen the positive momentum that can come from a healthy culture and the disaster that can come from an unhealthy culture.  Not too long ago I read the book Culture Wins, by William Vanderbloemen.  In the book, Vanderbloemen states, “When culture is bad, no matter how talented the team or great the strategy, a team will never reach its potential”.  What a statement to consider.  He goes on to state, “culture always wins”.  As I read, I was challenged, encouraged, and reminded of several things. 

First, every organization has a culture. 

Second, an organization’s culture is either a positive or negative contributor to its success or failure. 

Third, an organization’s culture whether positive or negative, will affect every layer of the organization.  It will win. 

The two questions that have continued to swirl around my mind as I serve in the role of HR Manager are, what is the state of Westfield’s culture?  And second, as individuals and a team, what can we do to shape it more positively?

I’ve experienced firsthand, from my first interview, the fact that Westfield makes the state of its culture a top priority.  I remember going home to excitedly tell my wife all about it.  As the HR Manager, I know that I’m not going to discern culture fit simply from an application, resume, or cover letter.  It’s much more than someone’s career accomplishments and college degrees.   It’s innate.  It’s within me and it’s within you.  It’s how I interact with my family and team members, how I respond to conflict, it’s my work ethic, it’s how I communicate, it's my willingness to do hard things or lack thereof, and it’s how I respond to hard things.  Again, it’s not about whether someone displays this.  We all do.  Day in and day out. 

Throughout my career, I’ve also learned that one of the most important keys to a healthy culture is having clear core values that are consistently lived out. A culture will always be shaped, either positively or negatively, by the presence or absence of these values.  This is something that has to be regularly evaluated, and at times, like a vehicle’s alignment, be realigned.

My goal is to be intentional about shaping our culture.  An aspect of culture shaping is adding new people to the Westfield team.  I am blessed to ask each applicant that applies for employment at Westfield how they align with our purpose, “to glorify God in all our actions, positively impacting everyone we interact with”.  It’s a question that reveals a lot amidst an interview. 

But it doesn’t stop there.  My goal in our recruiting process is to truly understand whether an applicant will be a negative, neutral, or positive contributor to our culture.  I believe, and maybe a topic for another blog, that there is a direct correlation to an employee’s success and enjoyment in a role as it relates to their contribution or lack thereof to culture. 

Furthermore, with intentionality, I’ve observed our culture in action over lunch, conflict, celebrations, and troubleshooting.  It’s being developed through daily huddles, conversations, and yearly reviews that provide depth on the things employees should keep doing, stop doing, and start doing.  Our teams even shape a positive culture as they collaborate on projects and respond to problems.  A positive culture, one with depth and strength, does not just happen.  One of the big reasons for this is that culture involves people and people are not perfect.  Culture is not positive on its own.  It requires intentionality at every level.