The Culture Conversation

by John O. Burdett

Culture is rapidly moving up the leadership agenda — and rightly so. As organisations strive to become more agile, innovative, and purpose-driven, culture has emerged as a critical enabler of performance, not a soft add-on. Yet despite its growing importance, culture is still too often seen as abstract, difficult to define, or something to be handed off to HR.

The truth is, culture deserves a more central, more practical place in executive conversations. But to get there, leaders need the right language — and the right questions.

This A–Z guide offers a straightforward, thought-provoking way to navigate the culture conversation. It distils years of hands-on experience with major global organisations into simple themes, meaningful questions, and powerful insights designed to spark real dialogue and real change at the top.

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Click through to explore what 1913 can teach today’s leaders — and why it’s later than you think.

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Contents:

  1. Approach Culture from the Outside-In
  2. Be Aware of the Talent Pool
  3. Culture Is a System
  4. Drivers, Enablers and Cultural Anchors
  5. Establish Culture versus Strategy Early On
  6. Fast, Flat, Focused, Flexible and Fertile to New Ideas
  7. “Growth” Without Growing the People in the Business Is an Illusion
  8. Hire with Tomorrow’s Culture in Mind
  9. If You’re Not Managing Your Culture, Someone Else Is
  10. Justice and Fairness Loom Large in Every Employee’s Belief System
  11. Know that How People Learn Is More Important than What They Learn
  12. Leadership Balance
  13. Measure, Measure, Measure
  14. Nothing Is More Important than Mindset
  15. Overlook the Informal Organization at Your Peril
  16. Peer Coaching Is an Invaluable Discipline
  17. Question Not What You Have Achieved … But the Legacy You Will Leave Behind
  18. Resilience
  19. Storytelling
  20. Trust Is Everything
  21. Understand that Every Business Has More than One Culture
  22. “Values” Introduce Unhelpful Ambiguity
  23. Why Do Your Best People Stay?
  24. Xceptional Leaders Build Great Teams
  25. Yesterday Was About Knowing, Today It’s Asking Great Questions
  26. Zoom and Its Peers Usher in an Era Beyond Management-By-Walking-Around
  27. The Culture Conversation Guide Scorecard
  28. Are You Managing Your Culture?

This article is an extract of content © Orxestra® Inc. The download is available from the TRANSEARCH International website.

John O. Burdett is founder of Orxestra® Inc. He has extensive international experience as a senior executive. As a consultant he has worked in more than 40 countries for organisations that are household names. John has worked on organisation culture for some of the world's largest organisations. His ongoing partnership with TRANSEARCH International means that his thought leading intellectual property, in any one year, supports talent management in many hundreds of organisations around the world. Get in touch with John O. Burdett »

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