Every conversation you have is a culture decision

Culture is one of those things everyone agrees matters but few know definitively how to change.

Everything initiative is a test; a hopeful reach for things that look like change and ‘could’ have impact.

New values. Engagement surveys. Offsites. Initiatives. Programs. Policies designed to make people feel something is different when nothing real has actually changed.

They sound great. Look great in a presentation. They are absolute; you can tick a box and mark them down as complete.

But they don’t work, because they don’t get to to the heart of where culture happens.

Culture happens between people. Not in big gestures, but in the minutiae of interaction.

Conversations create culture.

Every day. In every exchange between a leader and the people they lead - whether that leader is intending to create culture or not, they are.

Information moves through conversation. Standards are set - or silently dropped - through conversation. People learn whether it's safe to speak, to fail, to push back, to bring their actual thinking into the room, or not - all through what is said.

Not through a values poster. Not through your commitment to your engagement survey.

Through what gets said - and how – and to whom - every single day.

Your values are stated through what you say, not that you say you have them.

If your culture isn’t where you want it, you don’t need another program.

You need to address the quality of your leaders conversations.

Not that leaders aren’t having enough conversations – this is what most leadership thinking focuses on.

Leaders are talking endlessly to their people. In fact the interaction these days can be at time ad-nauseam – consider if ‘talking’ also includes messaging on various platforms, emails, meetings – the conversations are happening.

They're just about the wrong thing.

Think about the last meaningful conversation you had with someone on your team.

What was it about?

The project, most likely. The deadline. The problem that needed solving. The update you needed. The decision that had to be made.

The work.

Now ask yourself: when did you last have a meaningful conversation about the person doing the work? Not their output - them. What you're seeing in them. What they're capable of that they haven't reached yet. What's holding them back that neither of you has named. What they think. What they need. What they're not saying.

For most leaders, that conversation is rare. Saved for twice yearly reviews at best. At worst, triggered by a problem. Had reactively, when something has already gone wrong.

And yet - the person doing the work determines the quality of the work. Always.

Too few conversations are about the person.

You can talk to your people every day and still never have a conversation that changes anything.

There's a second dimension to this, and it's harder to see.

Even when leaders do turn their attention to the person - most of the conversation flows in one direction. The leader talks. The leader assesses. The leader concludes. The leader offers the solution or guides someone towards it.

The person receives.

That's not a conversation. That's a briefing. And it produces the same result a briefing always does - compliance at best, quiet disengagement at worst. Nothing actually shifts in the person, because little was asked from them. Nothing was uncovered. The leader left with the same understanding they walked in with.

The quality of a conversation is not determined by how clearly the leader communicates.

It's determined by what gets uncovered that wasn't known before.

So before you commission another culture consultant, or design another engagement initiative - sit with this:

In your conversations with your people this week, how much of the time were you talking about the work?

And how much were you talking about the person in front of you?

The gap between those two numbers is your culture gap.

No program will close it.

But you can - every single day.