Future Focused by Rose Gailey and Ian Johnston
“Culture is an organisation’s living, breathing, evolving habits, behaviours and values - the glue holding organisations together.”
3 Main Messages:
Leaders are the chief architects of culture and need to lead by example in what they say and do.
Purpose should be simple and clear.
Decide what is important and then measure and reward that.
Malcolm Gladwell said “I’ve become convinced that culture is the most important predictor of where a company is going.” Certainly a strong and positive culture is what will attract people to work for an organisation and to remain there.
In the last 2 years, many globally have revalued their working conditions and priorities in life and we have seen “The Great Resignation” (Anthony Klotz of UCL London) or the “Great Reshuffle” (Josh Frydenberg, Australia’s Treasurer). Whichever way you look at it, people are wanting more out of their work, be it flexible working, greater remuneration or, as Gailey and Johnston suggest: a future focused culture.
In this book, Gailey and Johnston draw on years of experience of working with large, international companies who have successfully created cultures which have clear purpose and structure: the cornerstones of culture.
In order to be fully transparent, I must reveal that I know Ian Johnston, and so, knowing how keenly he observes others and how thoughtful, proactive and reflective he is, I was keen to read his work and learn from his years of experience. I wasn’t disappointed!
In this book there are multiple examples of businesses, such as Southwest Airlines and DBS, who have actively addressed work culture and created models that we can all aspire to. The common elements found across these businesses are:
Purposeful Leadership
Personal Change
Broad Engagement
Systemic Alignment
These are each explained and then models and tasks given in to encourage replication in any place of work.
Gailey and Johnston write about the cornerstones for creating a positive work culture within an organisation. This starts by having a strong purpose and sense of ‘why’ the organisation exists, written about by Simon Sinek. The companies that are referenced all have clear and simple values and mission with a socially meaningful purpose.
Every organisation then needs a strong leader who embodies the culture. They write about the CEO being “the chief architect of culture”, who is able to clearly articulate the purpose in order to provide clarity for decision making.
A strong leader, however, cannot act alone and must be supported by the entire leadership team. These ‘culture drivers’ all need to be fully aligned and ‘singing from the same hymnsheet.’ Their words, soundbites, stories, actions and behaviours should be a constant example of the CEO’s vision of the culture within the organisation. As explained in the book; “A CEO’s impact is enhanced or diminished in many ways by the effectiveness of their leadership teams.”
Underpinning this, structures need to be in place. The authors recommend frequent ‘pulse surveys’ to check alignment across the company. They suggest that there is agreement around what is important and then metrics are introduced to track these, as “what gets measured gets done.” As “employees are the core of success”, they need clear goals and values, strong examples, frequent appreciation and feedback from their leaders.
Each chapter of the book concludes with key takeaways, which summarise the main points. Perhaps the most valuable and useful addition to each section is the end of chapter reflections, which contain relevant and valuable questions for readers to ask themselves about their organisations in order to provide clarity and next steps. There are real examples and stories scattered throughout the book and a selection of models and activities to support learning and promote thinking.
Even the most embedded cultures can change.. Leaders need to fully understand what the culture currently looks and feels like at all levels of their organisation and then carefully consider their own behaviours, leadership teams and structures in order to ensure that the culture positively aligns with a clear purpose. Using the examples and tools in this book, I believe that is possible.
