On a culture journey
Being on a ‘culture journey’ is one of the most overused metaphors in business. If you haven't come across it before - lucky you! - it’s essentially a way of saying, ‘we’ve started something’, with explicit reference to changing the way work gets done.
Yet, there are three issues that I have with this statement:
The ‘journey’ has been decided for employees whether they like it or not. How many work-related journeys have you been on where the unknown outcome has been one of joy and agency?
Journeys have to end and culture never does. You don’t get to Land’s End and say ‘right, we’re here, wasn’t that brilliant’. Culture is perpetual.
It’s usually a way of making false promises. Often it’s in response to a report, or a low engagement score, or someone of influence leaving or - as will become apparent to most of you - implementing new technology that will have a significant impact on, well, everything
The point is, that culture journeys can actually be fantastic endeavours if you invite people to collaborate with you, seek their opinions in the design phase, don’t allow any individual (regardless of seniority) to go off and do their own thing or else dramatically veer away from the things that you are actually good at.
Most journeys however, end up on roundabouts or else are abandoned halfway leaving people stranded without warning. At that stage the journey becomes a nightmare that no one wants to be on and the culture comes to a screeching halt with trust forever destroyed.
If you’re going to go on a culture journey, do it together and never let the air go out of the tyres.
