Donald and Charlie Sull, a father and son research team, discuss the impact of toxic culture on teams. They explore topics such as analyzing employee conversations, the limitations of surveys in measuring culture, and the effects of the pandemic on workplace culture. They also delve into the misalignment between espoused values and performance, collaboration, risk tolerance, and the use of social incentives to address bad behavior.
Toxic culture, characterized by disrespect, exclusion, unethical behavior, abuse, and cutthroat competition, is a potent driver of negative employee outcomes, with women reporting toxic culture 41% more often than men.
Social norms play a powerful role in shaping organizational culture, and organizations can strengthen cultural values by connecting them explicitly to social norms and providing social rewards for adherence, fostering candor, psychological safety, and customization at the team level.
Deep dives
The Impact of Culture on Employee Satisfaction and Retention
The podcast episode discusses the significant influence of organizational culture on employee satisfaction and retention. The researchers, Donald and Charlie, have developed a unique method of measuring culture by analyzing employee reviews and text data. They found that there is often a disconnect between the values espoused by companies and the actual cultural performance. Toxic culture, characterized by disrespect, exclusion, unethical behavior, abuse, and cutthroat competition, has been identified as the most potent driver of negative employee outcomes. Women are 41% more likely to report toxic culture than men. The COVID-19 pandemic had a temporary positive effect on culture, but remote and hybrid work arrangements can pose challenges to collaboration, recognition, and coaching, highlighting the need for active management of culture in the post-pandemic era.
The Power of Social Norms in Shaping Culture
The podcast explores the impact of social norms on shaping organizational culture. The research indicates that social norms play a powerful role in influencing employee behavior and performance. Studies have shown that social norms are more effective in driving behavior than formal policies or values. Organizations can strengthen cultural values by connecting them explicitly to social norms and providing social rewards for adhering to those norms. Examples include fostering candor and psychological safety by promoting open discussions and sharing lessons learned from failures. Building social norms at the team level allows for greater customization and involvement of employees in norm development.
Measuring Culture: Moving Beyond Values and Surveys
The podcast highlights the limitations of traditional culture measurement methods, such as values statements and Likert scale surveys, and proposes a text-based measurement approach. This approach involves analyzing free text data from employee reviews and feedback to gain deeper insights into culture topics, such as collaboration, agility, and pet-friendliness. Text analysis provides a more comprehensive and contextual understanding of culture, as well as a measure of salience and importance of different cultural aspects. The use of big data sources like Glassdoor allows for more robust and scalable analysis. Effective culture measurement requires active management and attention from leaders.
Challenges and Opportunities in the Post-Pandemic Culture
The podcast episode discusses the challenges and opportunities in shaping organizational culture in the post-pandemic era. While the COVID-19 crisis initially led to a 'COVID bump' in culture perceptions, remote and hybrid work arrangements pose unique challenges. Areas like collaboration, performance recognition, and coaching may experience setbacks in remote work environments. The pandemic offers a window of opportunity for leaders to reinforce cultural values and social norms. However, passive assumptions that pre-pandemic culture will naturally return are insufficient. Active management and attention are required to align culture with the changing work landscape and maintain employee satisfaction and retention.
If you’re someone whose job it is think about culture, or maybe you’re a boss who has tried to communicate values to your team then today’s episode is an essential listen.
Donald Sull and Charlie Sull are a father and son research team who have discovered extraordinary insights into values and what they look like in the real world.
Here are some articles to get you going to understand the world of the Sulls:
