COLIN ON CULTURE
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Grey hair, golden outputs
Forward-thinking companies implement age-friendly programmes, recognising the value older employees can add
Things Don't Always Get Better
Middle-aged men often hide their struggles behind the phrase, "Things can only get better," but the truth is, real change requires vulnerability and seeking help. Your well-being matters—don’t suffer in silence.
Beyond National Food Days
Celebrating diversity with food is just the beginning. True cultural empathy involves understanding the stories, values, and communication styles that shape your colleagues. Let’s dive deeper to build stronger, more empathetic teams.
Another Way
Someone recently said, "Everything is negative these days." I disagreed. While negativity is everywhere, we become what we consume
Leading on and off the field
Sports is starting to take culture seriously and if teams want to see sustained performance it’s important that more follow St Helens’ lead.
It’ll never be us
Toxic culture is every organisation’s biggest risk. Toxic cultures harm humans, results and reputations. But they are preventable.
Anomie
Anomie is ‘a lack of rules’ and it's the silent killer of great work. It's what happens when nobody knows which standards matter anymore.
Truth without the thorns
Lose the jargon and communicate with directness because when your team know where they stand they feel safer.
Facts matter
When leaders make decisions based on facts they build trust and reinforce the culture they want to see.
Emotionally excellent
It takes more than technical skills to build a team and create a culture.
Effective communication
When you have mastered a clear message you have a skill that you will use every day.
Won’t AI just make employees lazy?
To be successful, AI implementation must be part of a broader evolution of the existing culture, with good practice principles agreed in advance.
Space for everyone
We don’t all work the same so why do we persist with culture killing monolithic office spaces?
Communication: the key to success
Communication permeates every aspect of our working lives. From explaining strategies, crafting compelling presentations and negotiating deals to resolving conflicts and building trust-based relationships. Effective communication shapes outcomes at every turn.
Saying no
One of the best skills we can learn, therefore, is the ability to say ‘no’ and sometimes, ‘no’ is a complete sentence. That’s not to say that we deliver the message rudely or with attitude, indeed the opposite is true.
Culture decay
Dysfunctional workplaces need intervention precisely because they're dysfunctional. Every day you wait the problems become more entrenched, behaviours become more normalised and cynicism grows deeper.
Broken promises
Promises create expectation. When we don’t deliver on that expectation, trust - and more - is lost. Make yours a culture that can keep its promises.
How can we make it easier?
When a workforce grows or a start-up scales, the culture also evolves and more structure is required. But that doesn’t and shouldn’t mean things have to get harder too.
The cost of hovering
Micromanagement is a culture-killer that can unravel even the most productive of teams. Swap hovering for trusting and watch your teams soar
Bottling a crisis culture
Organisations need to shift from trying to mandate culture (or simply expecting it to happen!) to instead creating conditions where employees have the agency to shape it themselves.