The culture tax

Every organisation says they want a great culture. Few are willing to pay for one.

Culture is expensive because genuine transformation demands time, new skills, behaviour change, consistency, and sustained future investment. There are no hacks.

Impatient organisations treat culture like a Windows update; schedule it to run, then forget about it. They want the workshop, the away day, the famous motivational speaker. Tick the box, move on. Six months later, they're wondering why nothing's changed.

Employees aren’t wondering though. They intrinsically understand that it will take time and actually want to be involved in the process. They recognise that if their organisation is patient, not only will it build emotional capital - i.e. the value created by the positive morale, engagement and commitment - they’ll be prepared to go the extra mile to see the investment succeed.

Patient organisations know that culture isn't just built in moments of inspiration, but in hundreds of small, unglamorous decisions made consistently over months and years. They budget for it annually, not as a one-off. They measure it properly. They hold leaders accountable when behaviours don't match values and lose the people that seek to hold them back.

This is not opinion, it’s fact. Organisations in the top quartile for employee engagement (the aforementioned emotional capital) outperform their peers by 23% in profitability. However, engagement isn't bought cheaply, it's earned through relentless attention to how people experience work every single day.

Impatience, on the other hand, is a tax. Organisations that chase quick fixes end up paying repeatedly for the same problems: turnover, disengagement, poor performance, poor results. Leaders and managers drain motivation, productivity and leave employees emotionally exhausted and physically wrecked. Impatient organisations want to create a change project, roll it out and for everyone to change. Immediately.

The patient ones however, pay once, plan properly, deliver incrementally and get the returns. They then look at how they can continually evolve to maintain momentum.

Culture is a long game. The patient organisations that accept this will always outperform the impatient ones searching for shortcuts.

The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in culture. It's whether you’ve already waited too long to do so.