Culture is the New Social Media

Almost every company realizes that they need to do it, but few know how to get it right. Culture is hot, and just as with social media, so-called experts are popping up all over the place.

In the early days of social media, an expert was anyone who understood that images are more powerful than words (and a real expert knew that a great picture from a customer says more than any marketing team can ever concoct). An expert knew that a tweet only contains 140 characters (a real expert knew to keep it much shorter and snappier to get a retweet). The true experts, ultimately, only needed one main specialized skill, storytelling, to thrive in social media.

But it isn't so easy to develop cultural expertise. Culture is the very fabric of an organization. Social media, by contrast, is a way to share that fabric with the collaborative ecosystem of employees, contractors, collaborators and customers. So how can you spot an expert or agency worth engaging?

Does the expert have global experience?
If your organization has a global presence, your expert needs to understand global culture. Seven years ago, I first started working on collaborative culture with companies like Manpower and IBM. During that time, I collaborated with Manpower CEO Jeff Joerres and key members of his executive team on a project to develop collaborative culture. Manpower, at that time, operated across 82 global labor markets. I needed a global perspective.

In the last seven years, I've worked in some way with people in dozens of countries, and before I came to Science House I spent years traveling. This experience completely transformed me. Just last week I worked on a project with teams in Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong and London. These teams, though working for the same company, do not approach collaboration in the same way. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work. Why do 98% of LinkedIn employees approve of CEO Jeff Weiner, according to Glassdoor? Culture and values top the list.

Globalization will result in an inexcusably dull business culture if we don't take the time to appreciate what people from different places have to offer as we grow the shared capabilities of global teams.

Can the expert make the invisible visible?
Culture is invisible, nebulous, and difficult to measure. That's why it gets shoved into the "soft skills" category, even though it is extremely difficult to design a culture that is not only highly productive and profitable, but enjoyable and, ideally, beneficial. What kind of tools does your expert have to achieve visibility for your culture so it can be visualized and managed? Words and ideas are often not stronger than the habits your employees have already developed, particularly in large or traditional companies, where the culture is very slow to change. If a culture tool doesn't strike you as intuitive, it probably won't stick.

For many years I looked for a tool and found few options. I wasn't satisfied with individualistic approaches like Myers-Briggs. My opinion is that culture is the ultimate in dynamic innovation, a living, co-created reality that enables people to grow and change while enabling a business to respond to constantly shifting challenges. It wasn't until Dr. Simon Sagmeister stepped through the door at Science House and I first glimpsed Culture Map (which we have since exclusively licensed in the US) that I was finally able to get in front of a client and show them what they look like in seven color-coded hexagons. The difference is huge.

Not only can they see what they look like now, but they can design their own future and the action items they want to take to get there together. Before Culture Map, we had to do a lot of talking and digging to get to the same point, and there was always the challenge of trying to convince leaders that what they couldn't see could be consciously shaped and intentionally designed over time. Now our clients talk in colors. They understand each other on a deeper level and, ultimately, can make better hiring decisions, communications strategies and rewards based on a much deeper form of alignment.

How does the expert define collaboration?
If it doesn't include your customers, suppliers, distributors, partners, employees and potential employees--everyone who is affiliated with the ecosystem of your organization--keep looking. An expert in the Industrial Era mindset won't help you in the Imagination Age.