Culture (Noun, verb or what?)

Written by: Ralph Twombly

Published: June 2009

Culture (Noun, verb or what?)

Recently while working with a client on "cultural" crews, it occurred to me that people were looking for a better word for the organizational climate and that the word "culture" was confusing. As I thought through this dilemma I concluded that I had a couple of options available to me and one was to look online to do a little searching:

I went to the internet and here is what I found:

Culture from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate".

• When the concept first emerged in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, it connoted a process of cultivation or improvement, as in agriculture or horticulture.
• In the nineteenth century, it came to refer first to the betterment or refinement of the individual, especially through education, and then to the fulfillment of national aspirations or ideals. In the mid-nineteenth century, some scientists used the term "culture" to refer to a universal human capacity.

You might also notice that the word culture contains the first four letters' CULT which scares the heck out of folks. As we discuss culture and the concepts of culture, people are no doubt thinking 'just what we need, another cult'.

• In the twentieth century, "culture" emerged as a concept central to anthropology, encompassing all human phenomena that are not purely results of human genetics.
• Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively. Following World War II, the term became important, albeit with different meanings, in other disciplines such as sociology, cultural studies, organizational psychology and management studies.

I decided to take a lighter approach. Some of our best work is expressed in the form of Story Telling. This is an ancient art and one we spend serious time on at Priority Learning, because it really captures the essence of an idea instead of the definition. The following is a true story about culture.

The Abridged Story of Norway Savings Bank

In 2005 Bob Harmon and his senior people at Norway Savings Bank discovered that the Bank had a bit of a split personality. Sounds peculiar, but after a merger with Coastal Bank and Bob arriving as the new CEO plus the addition of some key leaders from other organizations, Norway began to feel like it might have more than one personality or culture.

On top of all of this, Norway emerged as a Bank that now stretched from the New Hampshire border to the coast and as far south as Saco. This new geographic challenge presented problems when people couldn't see each other (line of sight) because the rural markets of the original Norway Savings Bank were different than the urban markets of Portland. They defined culture as getting things done, such as decision making, the way people worked with customers, and the way that those same people felt about NSB and its leadership. This challenge presented people with the dilemma of delivering services and handling each daily interaction differently. See the dilemma?

The net result was a confused workforce: Unsure of what they were going to do or where they were going.

The solution was seamless and yet, at the same time, complicated. Bob decided that he wanted to do three things simultaneously:

1. First, Bob wanted to create a Brand for the Bank that was among the best around and particularly in the markets that Norway Savings Bank served. You may ask what that has to do with culture and the answer might simply be that if you brand yourself as something special, living up to it is the best thing you can do in Maine.
2. Second, empowering employees was the way to build loyal, strong, nimble and capable workforces. Empowerment was identified as a way to companion with strong brand recognition because people had to be able to do things at Norway Savings Bank that other banks couldn't.
3. Finally, to do these two things Bob wanted people to identify with Norway Savings Bank and create a much higher level of workplace satisfaction. We called this element a "culture shift or change".

Armed with a really good workforce, Bob and his senior team set out to change it all. The struggle began with a different and better brand and progressed to a steering-team approach for building and rebuilding a culture of high achievement and high support. This began with an organizational diagnostic and then step by step through a systematic process of employee involvement and engagement. The employees began to get involved in the solutions, welcomed by managers and working on relevant issues, while being focused on the big three: Empowerment, Culture and Brand. Progress began to build energy and inertia. The Brand started to gain momentum about the same time that the culture involvement reached critical mass (more people involved in positive change than not involved). This, coupled with the new empowerment initiative change, began to kick in and as they say; the rest is history.

In 2008, Norway Savings Bank emerged as the number one "Best Places to Work in Maine" among organizations its own size. Along with this achievement came good practices and profitability. Through a hard recession, Norway Savings Bank felt the same pain we all did and held its ground and even gained ground on its competition with a workforce of people dedicated, empowered, nimble and committed to not only each other but to the communities they serve.

About a year after we concluded our Cultural Steering Official Process, Bob invited me to facilitate a meeting at Pine Land to discover with his key players why they were having a lot of success in a pretty bad market. During the morning of this off-site day, I conducted activities with the audience to drive the answer to this question. Around lunch time, Lisa Rideout (Norway Savings Bank's Investment Guru) announced that she "had it." Not that she had "had it" with the exercise, but she had the answer. Lisa concluded what I think the group felt was the right answer. She said, "We have 250 sales people!" That was the end of the morning and discussion and Lisa pretty much nailed it.

Great story? We think so because every word is true and it is a testament to how smart people build something together that is greater than the sum of its parts. Norway Savings Bank remains a great Bank and a great customer of ours and we love to tell their story. They get culture!

So, what have you concluded? Is it a noun or a verb? Around here we know what it isn't. For instance, it's not a series of tactical steps, but more a feeling you get when you walk in the door. It's not just a thing to do, but a way of life. And, it's not a bright shinny image, but instead it is loyal people doing great work in new and exciting ways everyday. Like Norway Savings Bank, you'll know it when you see it.

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Ralph Twombly

In the 20 years since starting Priority Learning, Ralph has facilitated countless learning experiences and has conducted training for thousands of managers and leaders. With over 30 years of leadership development and organizational development background and work, Ralph continues to build relationships with client companies all over the U.S.