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Culture. The Only Differentiator That Matters

One man in a yellow short and black baseball cap and a grey-haired man with glasses discuss the importance of company culture
Dan Dowman (left) and Andy Goram (right) discuss why building the right culture is a strategic commercial necessity

Are you struggling to keep your employees engaged and motivated in a rapidly changing business environment? What if the secret to outperforming your competitors and retaining top talent lies not in your products or services, but in your company culture? In this episode of the Sticky From The Inside podcast, titled "Culture: The Only Differentiator That Matters," host Andy Goram and his guest, Dan Dowman, explore why cultivating a strong, intentional workplace culture is no longer just a nice-to-have—it's the key to sustainable success.

Dan Dowman, founder of Anthem and host of the Culture Crush podcast, shares his journey and insights on how to transform your organization's culture into a powerful competitive advantage. They discuss the real, measurable costs of ignoring cultural development, from talent loss to stifled innovation, and offer practical strategies for embedding culture at the heart of your business strategy.


If you're ready to turn your workplace into a thriving environment where employees are energized and customers can't help but sing your praises, this episode is a must-listen. You can listen now, Using the Player below, or read the full transcript beneath that to discover why culture is the only differentiator that truly matters, and how you can start making it work for your business today.


Listen here


Podcast Introduction

00:00:10 - Andy Goram

Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the employee engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition-smashing consistently successful organizations from the inside out. I'm your host, Andy Goram, and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them, and create tons more success for everyone.


This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that. Each episode, we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses, the sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work, and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it.


So if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.


Culture as a commercial necessity

Okay then. Today we're tackling a topic that's not just important, as far as I'm concerned, it's a necessity. I want to talk about moving the intentional development of an enabling and successful organizational culture from an interesting but for some people, abstract concepts to a critical commercial necessity.


In a world where competition is fierce, costs are skyrocketing, and attracting and holding on to top talent is, I think, more challenging than ever. There still seems to be a reticence or cautiousness for some organizations to protect and strengthen their position in the market by investing in ensuring they have the right culture for their future. Instead, I'm seeing money being saved by withdrawing from these things or in hearing statements like, we'll get back to this stuff when we've seen out this storm.


Now, it's no surprise to hear that. I feel strongly that organizations that fail to address their cultural issues aren't saving money, they're losing it. And yes, I do have a vested interest in all this. Yes, it is part of my business. But the costs associated with culture are not limited to what it costs you to get it right or to get help getting it right. These are very real, tangible costs, and there are missed benefits associated with getting it wrong too, or even just not intentionally going after the culture your organization needs to be truly, sustainably successful.


So today I want to try and shed some light on why now is the perfect time to take action, and how doing so can lead to a thriving, successful business. Now, to help me, and frankly, stop me from just ranting, is Dan Dowman from anthem. Dan is not only a thought leader in workplace culture, but he's also the host of the Culture Crush podcast, where he interviews culture experts about their inspirations and insights, and shares real examples of what people and organizations are doing to get a grip of their culture and ensure that good things happen.


Now, I want to get Dan to share his perspective on how organizations are making the intentional development of their culture a strategic priority and why this shift is crucial for staying competitive. So if you're struggling to get this message through in your organization, or you're surrounded by people who can't see the commercial benefit of a great culture, or you're already on the journey and just need a boost, this episode might just be what you're looking for. Welcome to the show, Dan.


Introduction to Dan Dowman

00:03:54 - Dan Dowman

It's good to be here. Andy, thank you for having me on. I'm excited to talk all things culture with you.


00:04:00 - Andy Goram

Well, I mean, that I don't think is going to be a problem for us talking about culture. I think the problem we're going to face into today is perhaps why people are not as enthusiastic, passionate, vigorous about it being a strategic necessity as maybe we are, or some of the people that we, that we work with. But before we run headlong into all of that, buddy, do me and my guests a bit of a favour. Let's just get a bit of a flavour for your background, what you, what you've been up to and what you're focusing on now.


00:04:31 - Dan Dowman

Yeah, let me break it down into, I guess, three, three sort of chapters for you. When I started my career, so when I was about, you know, 18-19, I mean, I'd had lots of jobs. I was working from, from the age of 13. Like, as soon as I could get a paper round, I got a paper round. It was just kind of, I had this very, very strong work ethic right from a very young age. But really my kind of career started in youth work and community building, where I was developing youth programs with different NGOs and got kind of good at that, kind of the tail end of that section of my career, I had hundreds of young people in my community programs every week. You know, hundreds of families involved, 60, 70 volunteers across the program, lots of full time staff, and anyone who knows that world a little bit. There's so much legislation, admin planning. Like, it's a complicated piece of work. But really what stood out to me during that time was my skills as a storyteller, as a marketer, as a facilitator. Like, I really had to get good at all that stuff. And that's the stuff that really kind of setting me up for the rest of my career.

Then after that, I realized I couldn't be a youth worker forever. And I ended up in consulting, branding and marketing.


So there's a kind of a few jobs that kind of came in quick succession and got the chance to work with a lot of amazing brands, worked in things like developing high performing teams, worked as head of marketing for a start-up and ended up as a strategy director at a tech start-up, which is all about helping big brands find their tribe, essentially. And then through an acquisition that took place, me and, well, lots of other people in the business ended up facing redundancy. And that was the point where I kind of stepped out on my own terms and launched Anthem, which is all about helping leaders and organizations figure out what's working for and against them in terms of their company culture and then helping them do something about it.


And what was really nice about that journey is that when I started Anthem, I thought, well, it's going to be marketing, it's going to be branding, it's going to be facilitation. But you mentioned the Culture Crush podcast there. Through that journey of meeting lots of different guests for my podcast, I started to meet people who would say, yeah, but that youth work thing sounds really interesting. That community building stuff sounds really interesting. Like where does that fit with this new business you're setting up? And really what they helped me to recognize was that chapter of my life that I'd put on a shelf, right? It was gathering dust and I kind of thought, that part of my life is over, I'm now doing this. They helped me kind of take that down off the shelf and realize that I do like marketing and branding, I like telling stories, but really I don't want to get stuck in a world of execution.


I care about those things because I care about the cultures that drive them. I care about the heartbeat behind those stories. And I began to realize that anthem was something bigger, it was something more, it was something about developing high performing cultures. And yes, how do we then turn those stories into action? How do we turn that into action? How do we translate those intentions from a business into things that we say do behave, marketing, branding, all that good stuff. So I still care about that very much and I still care about that execution, but I want to really support business leaders to figure out, well, how do we, if we want to tell a great story, we've got to do some inner work first. And that's what I'm doing today. So whistle stop tour. Hope that wasn't too much of a monologue.


Talking about culture, but not doing anything

00:08:23 - Andy Goram

No monologue about it, mate. It's one of the reasons that I think we're sat here together is to try and look at it through a different lens. So when you come to this culture party, you've started a business, you've got your podcast and all the rest of it kind of going. If you look at the issue that we're facing here today of people being interested in culture and talking a lot about culture, but then really nothing necessarily always happening or being an all or nothing thing, when you set up anthem and you've said about wanting to support clients, get a handle on this sort of stuff, what position do you come from? Where is that importance piece? Where is that joining together of the culture, the commercial, that whole thing?


00:09:05 - Dan Dowman

Yeah, so I think the real difficulties you sometimes have a misalignment between what you say and reality. Lots of people say we're like a family here, and that might be a signal of what people want it to be like, but the fiscal reality doesn't align with that. If you want to say that about yourselves, then you need to legislate, enshrine, create ways to make that true, and that needs to be your guiding principle. When that tough decision comes down the track, if actually as a leader, you know that people are saying that, but you know, when that fiscal challenge comes down the track, and that's not something, you know, you are going to be making layoffs, you are going to be making those tough decisions. What that should prompt to you as a leader is actually we need to change the way we're talking because we're not going to live up to that standard that's kind of being thrown around this office. We're not going to live up to that value. So we actually need to think differently about the kind of the values and the purpose statements and the mission statements that we're putting out to our people.


Pitfalls of productivity optimisation

 So there's already often this discrepancy that exists, and at some point that discrepancy will become a problem within that organization. It might not be now, but it's definitely coming down the track. I think the second thing is we have this obsession with productivity and optimisation. I think we've reached peak productivity.


Yes, you might be able to introduce a new CRM that might be able to help you execute your tasks 1% faster or different creative tools that might be able to help you to turn around creative assets a little bit quicker. But we're really tinkering at this point. And there are all these kind of like SaaS companies that are still trying to convince you that their thing is going to help you move that little bit quicker. And we're optimizing the joy and the soul out of people's professional lives.


And what happens is when you treat people like a resource to be optimized and drained, things like innovation, creativity, ownership, those are the things that get crushed, those are the things that get stripped away. And if you're not creative, innovative, collaborative, that's when your good ideas go. That's where your next amazing product goes. That's where your next viral campaign doesn't exist, because you've lost the things that are needed to make that stuff happen. So we don't need more optimization, we don't need ways to work better, faster, like optimize every single element, be more productive. We actually need a new way of being, a new way of approaching challenges, a new way of thinking about this stuff.

And I think it's fair to say as well, that, culture is a scary thing for people to approach because it's so big, it's so vast, it's so abstract. And so one of the ways that we at Anthem, and one of the ways that I talk about culture, is focusing on the threads that contribute to your culture. Because culture is really the outcome of how people are interacting in your business and the systems they interact with in your business. Culture really is the outcome of that. So you've got to look at things like your values, your mission, your vision, employee behaviours. How does that stuff come to life? Because when you can focus on those different pieces that contribute to culture, that's when actually the outcome of culture will improve over time. But you've got to get into the nuances and the details to make that change over time.


Danger of disconnect with company values

00:12:43 - Andy Goram

There's a real danger, I think, in setting off on this journey to put vision, mission, values, behaviours together. If you're not being challenged to really look inward and say,

“Really? Is this what's really going to drive the business? Is this the behaviour that we really need to see to get things done?”

And I don't know what you've seen, but I've experienced something that sounded great, but had no real connection to where the business was going. And it had huge following initially, like a big firework going off. “This is amazing!” But then the day-to-day practices, the decisions that were made bore no resemblance at all to any of these words. So quickly, these things kind of dissipated, and even in worst cases, just start be used cynically.

And then conversely, I've worked in a business where it sounded pretty simple and mundane, but there was a conviction behind living those things and talking about those things every day. And because they were rooted in what the people were doing and where the business was going, it really consolidated people's actions, thoughts, and connection. Have you experienced the same thing when you're talking to people on the podcast or working with clients. Are these the sort of things that you're hearing? Are these the same sort of tales?


00:14:04 - Dan Dowman

Yeah, I mean, I think values is a particular exemplar of this disconnection that takes place. I've worked in companies where one of the values was “Make magic.”


00:14:16 - Andy Goram

Okay.


00:14:17 - Dan Dowman

I mean, there's literally not much you can say about it because it's so abstract, it means absolutely nothing. Now, obviously, the person, the one person who wrote that set of values without kind of involving the voices of others, didn't face any kind of challenge around it. They just legislated that this is one of our values. And so all of their team members are sort of going into client projects, like, with this idea of “I'm going to make magic”, and it's like, well, you know, it's completely devoid of direction, it's completely devoid of purpose, it's devoid of meaning. And as a result, you know, that kind of was just interpreted so differently by everybody. Like, it didn't translate well into kind of joined up behaviours and expressions of our value that we could all share.


Developing practical values for organisations

But I've also, you know, worked with, you know, worked with Lindt a few years back, kind of developing new values for their UK business, the chocolate company and then laterally with the USA business and with those set of values we created, they were like one sentence values that were very, very practical, very, very grounded, so they could translate into actions and behaviours, so we could actually then write about them. And they were super practical. And the success of the launch in the UK business is the reason why we then went and did a similar piece of work in the US.


One of the values there is open and honest conversations. Now, of course, open, honest conversations is still open to personal interpretation, but the point is, you can have an active conversation around what that means. How do people interpret open and honest conversations? Where are the boundaries about what being open, honest means? Because, like you said before, some people can twist the value and say, well,

“I was rude to that person because I was just being open and honest.”

Right? But you can have a very practical conversation because the value itself is really practical and grounded, so you can translate it from that sense of intention into actions and behaviours.


Personalising company values

00:16:22 - Andy Goram

I think the key to this stuff is then allowing every department, every employee, to be able to personalise what that value means to them in their day-to-day lives. So that making magic to someone in finance means something in their day-to-day actions. You know, making magic on the, on the shop floor means something to that sales rep because they've made sense of it. They can see how it translates in their day to day. And then colleagues and managers and leaders can see that stuff, relate to that stuff, praise that stuff, correct it if it's kind of shonky and offline. Because I think it only takes the actions of one person to look at your list of values and behaviours and go,

“You know what? This is lovely, but that one doesn’t apply to me because I don't do any of that.”

 Well, then everything's gone, because it's a bailout for everybody across the piece.


00:17:15 - Dan Dowman

Well, this is really interesting, because when I mentioned Lindt before, the way we ran that project was we did a whole organization survey across tens of thousands of employees, and we did focus groups at every level of the organization, from the c suite all the way down to the factory floor. So we got the buy in and support intelligence. We consulted with every level of the organization so that there was no value that people would say, that doesn’t apply to me.


And the thing I would say about “make magic”, I don’t want us to dwell on that, actually, because I think that’s such a terrible example of what a value could be. What it could be. If you wanted to run with “make magic”, though, you could say something like “make magic by going the extra mile.” That could be a value, because then you're putting some definition around, in this business, we make an effort to go the extra mile in a project which could apply to the different levels of the organizations that you just mentioned. And the making magic, there's still room for your personality and your personal application of that value, but it's contained within that we actually go a bit further. We're the kind of people in this organization that go the extra mile for people, because when we do that, we create something really special for our colleague, for our customer, for whoever. And that's why I think if you're stuck on values that are just kind of one or two words, you are on a fast track towards cultural entropy, towards cultural decay. At some point down the line.


00:18:52 - Andy Goram

I suspect you're right, and we won't dwell on magic. But just to suffice to say, Disney didn't do bad with having that within their core set of values. But that, for me, came from a clear intention and involvement, understanding, and then, you know, personalised implementation, right, of those things. So I think whatever it is as long as it's got that grounding in that involvement and that connection, it can work. It can work. It just needs translation.


00:19:19 - Dan Dowman

It can work. And obviously, there are going to be examples like Disney, where if you're in a particular, I guess, type of industry where I turn a phrase like making magic might be more relevant for your situation. And, of course, if we could go back in time, I can't remember how old Disney is at this point, but if I go back in time, sit down with Walt and say,

Actually, you're going to be this stratospherically massive organization with hundreds of thousands of employees around the world. You're going to inspire generations of young people. Do you think that actually there's going to be a better way that we can frame making magic, which is going to be more grounded, it's going to help you move faster, help you can achieve those goals more quickly than what we've got right now?

Because making magic is, I don't know if it's still Disney's value. I suspect it probably is. But we're looking back with retrospect and saying, well, what a great value, because Disney is so huge. But actually, I'm convinced that if we decide, if you and I sat down with Walt back in the day, we could have said, look, this is the way Disney is going to go. There's probably a better way of framing this and phrasing this, which is going to help you move faster. It's going to help you engage people more effectively. It's going to help you get to where you want to go even quicker. But because we're looking back now, who knows?


The importance of culture

00:20:47 - Andy Goram

Dan, what an interesting conversation that could have been. I think for me, the thing about whatever it is involving and getting connection to the people that are going to deliver that sort of stuff and helping them really understand it, get under the skin of it, personalize what it means for them in their day to day actions. That's what we're looking for, right? To make these, these things actually come off the page and work for us. And maybe, maybe this is some of the issue that is stifling or scaring people's approach to it, especially in times like now. You know, it's a pretty tough out there for lots and lots of businesses. And I do you hear this sort of phrase of,

Well, we can't really afford to do culture stuff right now. We got stuff to sort out.”

Are you hearing any of those sorts of comments?


00:21:39 - Dan Dowman

Oh, yeah, yeah. All the time. All the time. And I think there's a really great story, right? There's two great stories that essentially say the same thing. When Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, there's this kind of like legendary story, right? Because back in the day, nobody knew what he looked like. There weren't photographs and things like that knocking about. And Sir Christopher Wren can move through the crowd of workers who are building St. Paul's Cathedral unrecognized. So he can talk to people and say, “Oh, what are you doing?” And he goes up to this guy who's kind of pulling some ropes together for a pulley system to help kind of take the materials to up as it, as it, as it grows up. And he says, “Oh, what are you working on?” And the guy says, “Oh, I'm just putting this twine together so we can then lift the materials up towards the top part of the building at the moment.” He's like, “Oh, great, you know, crack on, have a good day.” And then he goes to someone else who's cutting some wooden for some beams for the cathedral. And he said, “Oh, what are you, what are you working on?” He said, “I'm just cutting wood because they've got to put some beams inside the building.” And he goes to the third guy who's like in the blazing heat of the sun and he's a stone mason, he's cutting the stone and he says, “Oh, what are you working on?” And this guy says, “I'm building St. Paul's Cathedral for Sir Christopher Wren.


The third person he spoke to had a completely different understanding of what their role was for them. It wasn't just I'm doing a job, it was that I had this ownership of this big mission, similar story making exactly the same point in the space race. Back in the sixties, Russia were winning on lots of fronts. They were winning the space race. They'd achieved lots of things first. And NASA are thinking,

We don’t know how were going to win this race. How are we going to put someone on the moon first?” 

And they went through this campaign with every department of trying to help people buy into the big mission. And before they were successful in putting the first man on the moon, you could’ve gone to anyone in NASA and said, what are you working on? And they would have said, “I’m putting man on the moon.” It was no longer about, I'm working on this heat plate system for the re-entry thing, or I'm working on this like digital algorithm that's going to help us figure out x or, you know, that kind of stuff. People bought the mission. And as soon as people bought the mission, NASA unlocked a level of creativity, velocity, innovation, and as a result, they win the race to the moon.


00:24:19 - Andy Goram

Yeah. Yeah.


00:24:20 - Dan Dowman

And so when we think about company leaders and organizations, you say, we can't do that at the moment. We haven't got the resource to do that. We haven't got the time to do that, or we're under pressure at the moment. It's like, what kind of company do you want to be? Do you want to be the kind of company that has creativity, innovation, velocity, like a NASA? Do you want to be an apple or a Google? We could list any number of companies that will do this stuff brilliantly well. And as a result, you know, their people are very much. I'm not saying that those organizations are perfect by any stretch. I mean, there are going to be people who are working on working under very difficult circumstances, under a lot of pressure, for sure, in those big multinational organizations, but there's going to be lots of stuff about their culture and the way they innovate that they get. Right. But yeah, I mean, leaders in organizations, if you're feeling the pressure and thinking we haven't got time to focus on this right now, that means now is the time to focus on it, because this is where the heart and soul of what you're trying to do is at risk, your mission is at risk. And as soon as that goes, what's the point? Because all the other stuff that, you know, you need, all that creativity, all that innovation, all that kind of purpose driven stuff that's going to really make you successful, that's going to go with it.


Culture as a competitive advantage

00:25:41 - Andy Goram

I think so. I think this is what's really important. And just to sort of build on some of those things, you can end up talking negatively about this stuff. And I don't want to. I want to try and remain in the positive because the unity that you're talking about, the drive that you're talking about can absolutely bring some amazing benefits alongside it, not least of the things that you've talked about, but financial benefit, the commercial benefit to those things. And then in the same breath, by not doing these things, by not intentionally owning and nurturing that culture that you need, you can lose a lot of stuff.


00:26:18 - Dan Dowman

A really critical thing I want people to remember is that

“Culture is the only differentiator that matters.”

In the end, you can come up with a great new product, you can nail your go to market strategy and you might get there first. But when I think about a company like Tesla as an example, you know, first company to really, really get us paying attention to electric vehicles and proven that they could be, they could feel premium, they could be cool, they could be fast, they could be seen as like this premium status symbol that lots of people could get their hands on, right? And here's the thing. Five years later, the car outside on my drive isn't a Tesla, it's from a competitor, because everybody caught up.


Because here's the thing, you can have a great innovation, you can have a great product, and that can help you streak ahead for a little bit. But everyone's going to catch up. Everyone's going to catch up. And that's why culture is the only differentiator that really matters. Because when you've got that right culture in place, you're able to collaborate, innovate, create. Those are the things that are going to keep you innovating and they keep you coming up with great new products, ideas, help you stay relevant, connecting with your tribe of customers in a new way. It all comes from that cultural identity piece. And you could point to any number of brands that streaked ahead. Everybody caught up. And now those companies have a negative reputation. So culture is the kind of stuff that helps you stay ahead because it means that your success isn't based on a singular or your next best great idea, it's based on something more. It comes from really the depths of your organization.


Unseen costs of workplace drama

00:28:04 - Andy Goram

I've heard you talk about lots of different things actually that can also contribute, that people don't necessarily see the cost associated with. You know, in the intro I mentioned, just loss of talent, even just holding on to talent. You know, the costs of, of retention versus constant recruitment are obvious for any financial controller, CFO, whoever. They're practical, tangible costs with a direct link to what's going on in the business from a cultural perspective. Right? The other day you mentioned something about workplace drama and the impact that that has commercially on a business. Do you want to just expand on that in terms of kind of like how you measure the experience, the cost of this stuff?


00:28:43 - Dan Dowman

You're absolutely right. Workplace drama is something that you can literally measure. Like you can literally figure out how much workplace drama is costing your business. And when I talk about workplace drama, I'm talking about lots of different things, of course, but let's say interpersonal dynamics, gossip, that kind of stuff. As a symbol of this, if actually you've got a workplace culture where there's lots of gossip and back chat and people kind of in the kitchenette when they're in the office, taking that extra half hour here and there to moan about their colleagues. All of those things are collectively costing the business a lot of money. And you can work out what those things, you can actually work out what those costs are.


So I think if your average hourly salary is 25 pounds, for example, and you're losing a couple of hours a week, and that's happening across, let's say, ten employees. So not a small business, but not a big business either, that costs your business 24,000 pounds a year just going off the averages. And now anyone who’s listening to this right now, they might go, well, I’ve got 1000 people in my business. You don’t need to actually do the mental maths, but just imagine that number like x 10, x 20, whatever, you’re losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. And its literally work based.


Drama is the fruit. It is the symptom, it is the experience of cultural entropy. It's an expression like workplace drama and gossip and stuff. It is a problem, but it's not the problem. It's the fruit of what's happening where you are. And so if you're saying to me we're under too much pressure, we can't afford to do this culture work stuff, this soft stuff at the moment, well, the more pressure you experience as a company, the less your culture matters, the more drama you're going to experience and the more you're going to add losses on losses in terms of the bottom line and that commercial impact. So you can't afford to ignore it, is the point.


00:31:07 - Andy Goram

I think I've just sitting and listened to what you just said there. And if this was a machine, and we're talking about productivity, if there was a machine on the line that was screwing up orders or making stuff go slower or putting boxes with nothing in it, you know, if it was a machine, you would go to that machine, you would open it up, you would dig around inside and you would find out the stuff that's causing the problem and then you would fix it. And you'd fix it so that it continued to run smoothly going forwards and then you would service it more regularly to make, to make sure it continued to run properly. And maybe you chuck in an upgrade every now and then to keep it, keep it working as things moved on. That's what we have to do with people and, and culture, you know, who is taking control of this stuff? Who is opening up the machine to find out problems and fix them and make sure that they, they can work sustainably going forward? I think that's some of the, some of the problem here and some of the wasted commercial opportunity or the increased cost that we see because we're just not digging into it.


The importance of addressing cultural decay

00:32:18 - Dan Dowman

I think the example of a machine kind of like moving towards decay is a good illustration. Other illustrations I think are useful are a garden, right? You know, if you don't tend to a garden, it gets overgrown. If you leave your car on the driveway for ten years and don't do anything with it, it's going to seize and rust. Because systems, things are always moving towards a state of decay. Unless we tend to them. They're still moving towards a state of decay, even if we do tend to them. But you can influence, because you have to pay attention here for a bit in one part of your garden, and then you have to pay attention over here. Then you have to pay attention over here. And then whilst you've been here, this bit's become overgrown, and then you have to go back over there. Like that is just how these things work.

So if you say, “now's not the time”, “we're going to ignore that”, then things are going to rust, things are going to decay, things are going to become overgrown, and you're creating bigger problems for yourself down the line.

And in terms of who needs to really pay attention to this, it has to be the people that hold the purse strings. It has to be the senior executives who can give permission to stuff. And it's not just about giving permission to a group of HR professionals saying, I want you guys to go behind closed doors, create some values, and then tell everybody else what those values are. That legislative, authoritarian, command and control tactic does not work. You need to give permission to it in other ways, release resource for it in other ways. Like you said, you and I have a business stake in this kind of work. Bring in an expert who can help conduct some of those conversations, can help you discover new insights.


00:34:04 Andy Goram

Hold the mirror up.


00:34:05 Dan Dowman

Yeah, hold the mirror up and perhaps map out some steps that you can go through to challenge, change and adapt this stuff.

Honesty and integrity in values

00:34:11 - Andy Goram

I even think that the last couple of minutes, this is where we. We sometimes don't do ourselves a favour because we get all excited about the metaphor, because we think it's painting a lovely picture for people to understand. We're trying to help them see it, help them translate it. For some, that just makes it more abstract again. And I think this is where we have to try and blast through this stuff and come, like you are saying, to the hard commercial truths of these things. If you don't invest in this stuff, if you don't hold up the mirror and ask yourself some pretty tough searching questions, but also have a good eye to the future about, and be honest about what you really need from a behavioural perspective going forwards, then this stuff will never be seen as anything other than a fluffy concept. Because you won't get anything tangible out of it. Because you haven't built anything that's going to help the company drive towards its goals and achieve its goals.


You know, I've said on this podcast before, and you've mentioned Tesla, so we can't not talk about Musk. And he come in for a load of flack when he bought X for his messaging around,

“Yeah, we'll have none of this kind of, like, you know, work when you like, and flexibility, if you here, you’re here. You're going to be under the table sleeping at night, working.”

Now, that is not a culture for me, but that is him being very clear about, hey, this is what this business is about. This is the culture of this business. And in his head, that's what he wanted. That's what you were very intentional about going after that. Right? Not lying, saying, this is going to be marvellous. No, this is going to be horrendous for most people, but that's what we're going to do here. Right. If you like that, come. Because you can have more of that. I think that honesty comes with a certain amount of integrity.


I don't like it. It's not for me. I think his head's gone. But for some people, that'll be the right thing. And I think coming back to the real truths of a business about where it's going and what it really needs to get there sustainably, that's what culture's about. And then going after that with everything you can, with all of your resources aligned to make that happen.


00:36:11 - Dan Dowman

Yeah, I mean, I get the idea that there is a certain level of transparency with what Elon Musk said about the kind of culture wanted to set up. I do think, however, and I'm sure you and I would agree on this, you know, you can't sustainably work like that or treat people like that. You know, you are in people who, like, there is this kind of, like, hustle culture around tech, which is deeply problematic for lots of people. And so somebody might say, well, that does sound like me, because that's the world I've been working in, and I could do some more of that. You know, I think those people will be coming with pretty compromised ideas around what kind of a healthy work culture look like. It creates problems down the line.


00:37:01 - Andy Goram

I agree with you. I think it's nuts. I think my point is that's what he thinks he needs his business, and that's what he's going after intentionally. My view is wrong, but I'm not in his business. I don't have the purse strings. I'm not driving it, I think. But my point is, rather than having a culture that sounds wonderful on paper and everybody goes, isn't that a marvel? Would that be marvelous? But then the day to day has nothing to do with that. That's just as problematic as having a musk world to live in, from my perspective. I think it's about really understanding what the business is, where it's going, and what it needs to get there, and then how it unites those things with the people. To your point earlier in the conversation, the people who are really making it happen every day through their behaviors, through their intention, through their willingness to do things and challenge stuff and move stuff forward, that's what comes with the real commercial benefit of this stuff, I think.


The model of collective fluency

00:37:57 - Dan Dowman

Well, you're absolutely right. And one of the ways that we frame this through our work at Anthony, through everything that we do, there's a philosophy that underpins our work, and that's this model of collective fluency. Now, we talked right at the beginning that we, you know, it's not about optimizing more or kind of like trying to squeeze more juice out of the lemon. It's about a new way of being. It's about a new model for how we practice. And the model of collective fluency isn't a solution. It's not like a tool for optimization. Like, it's a model for cultural practice. And there are three parts to it. Intention, action, and outcome.


So things like our mission, purpose, vision, values, they are the intentions of an organization. The organization saying, this is who we want to be. And those things need to translate into actions. Things like marketing stories, brand stories, employee value proposition, employee behaviours. They're all kind of expressions of actions. And then the last piece is outcomes. Like, what are the rewards that people get? What's the sense of ownership that kind of comes out of this practice? If you worked for me, Andy, I'd seen, let's actually, let's roll back and talk about values as an example. Right? Values are an expression of an organization's intention, about who they want to be. When they're grounded, they make sense. They can be. And their discussion starters. Right. They can be translated into employee behaviours, into people's actions. Then the outcome of that is, say you're working for me, Andy. So you've been living out those behaviours in the organization. Part of your review, your annual review might be you've hit your numbers, you've done all this great stuff. You actually, you're doing the tasks. And on the other side of that, I've seen you express our values in these ways. Not only that, in your 360, Lauren from the department over and Clive from over there, they've provided some feedback on how you've expressed the values. So not only are we going to say, look, we're going to give you a promotion, but we also want to promote you into this great new role because you're living and breathing the intention of this organization. What happens for you?


So, intention, action, outcome, what happens for you is it validates the intentions of the organization. It increases your sense of ownership. Right? It proves that those intentions were true and real. And so what happens is kind of this virtuous cycle emerges that that's where the momentum of culture comes from when you're working in that way. Now, what's great about this, this model and this approach is it sort of takes you away from absolute. It's no longer about, like, did we achieve x? It's a way of looking at a challenge and thinking around it differently.


So you could take that model if you were a CEO and you need to do a company town hall. If you approach that presentation thinking about, what's my intention? What do I need people to hear? What's the action? How do I need people to respond? How do I want people to engage with what I'm saying and what's the outcome? What do I need people to take away from this? If you could frame your presentation around those, those three points of the model, your presentation is much better and much clearer. If you're in marketing and you're doing a marketing retrospective and you're thinking, how do we assess whether what we've done was a good campaign? You can go back and say, well, was the intention clear? Was it obvious action? Was it obvious what we needed our consumer to do? What were the outcomes? Were the benefits clear? You can use this model in lots of different ways because it's not a new way of trying to assess our excellence or measure something. It's a new lens to view old problems. So if you've got a culture where there is a lot of gossip going on, you could apply this lens to that and think, well, okay, how do I take tactical action or intentional action around this issue? By thinking around the action, the intention, the action and the outcome.


Culture is the only differentiator that matters

00:42:12 - Andy Goram

Nice. I love that. And that sort of comes full circle for us, talking about where you were coming from initially, and then how that's practically applied to taking this thing from an abstract construct to something that is tangible and comes with some real commercial benefit. Dan, we've got to the point in the show where I'm looking at this one to see if we can capture the essence of today's conversation in a practical sense. And we've talked about practicality a lot today. So I'm going to ask you to leave behind three sticky notes. Right. Three sticky notes of wisdom or advice that you have for anybody wanting to try and take culture from something abstract to actually practical and a commercial necessity. And so what would you leave on your three sticky notes, my friend?


00:42:55 - Dan Dowman

Well, there's quite a lot. I've really got, like about nine sticky notes.


00:42:59 - Andy Goram

These like an A3 sized sticky notes or something?


00:43:03 - Dan Dowman

Yeah, exactly. I mean, let me give you a couple of. Not to break the format here, but a few things I would love for people listening to take away things like the call of leadership is to intention. The call of leadership. If you're a boss, you manage, you legislate, you tell people what to do. But if you're a leader, you've got to be like that gardener. You've got to be paying attention to what needs attention in my world right now. Right. That is your job. And if you're not doing that, I hate to tell you this, but you're not a leader, you're a boss. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. There's no criticism in that. Right. But if you want to consider yourself a leader, then you've got to think like that gardener. Right. You've got to challenge yourself. Like, what is the intention that I need? What's the road of intention that I need to lead my people on?


So I think that's one thing. The other thing is I want people to remember that culture is the only differentiator that matters. If you don't do the culture work, everyone's going to catch up with you. It doesn't matter how good your ideas are, you know, you'll be caught up by everybody but sticky notes, right? So they've kind of like. Let's say that they're kind of side points.


Sticky Notes

In terms of sticky notes, I would say that these three. The first one is, if you don't plan to do something, you've planned to do nothing. If you don't plan to do something, you've planned to do nothing culture is happening all around you, right? All the time. And it's up to you whether you allow that culture just to decay by not addressing things within that culture space or you plan to do something to, again, be that gardener role, pay attention to the things that matter. So that's the first piece. If you plan to do, if you don't plan to do something, you plan to do nothing and the result will be decay down the line.


I think toxic slogans, number two, toxic slogans are signals of cultural entropy. I want anybody listening to this podcast today when they're in the office or when they're in a meeting, listen out for those slogans that you often hear, that always give you the ick. We talked before about people saying, oh, we're like a family here, when everyone sort of knows it's not true, right? Another one might be, you know, play as a team, we play as a team. Or one of my favourites actually is we're all adults here, right? You know, real adults here is a turn of phrase that is used to silence people. Yeah, to get them to say, like, if you say, if you dissent here, you're being childish. You don't. To be childish to you, we're all adults here. Like, that's what they're saying, right? Listen out for those phrases that give you the ick, because they are signals that you're experiencing a level of toxic culture.


And then lastly, identify an intention where you work. If you've got a problem like that, think about, okay, what's my intention here? And how could I turn that into some action? What's my intention? And think about how could I run an intervention as an experiment, take the model, use it to frame some of your conversations. Bring people into that experiment. Let them know that we're going to try this for a few weeks and see how it goes. What did you think about it? Because that can just get the dialogue started.


Closing thoughts and conclusions

00:46:20 - Andy Goram

Brilliant. I mean, they are, I think, three very practical, non-abstract sticky notes, right? And that was the purpose of today's conversation, is to try and move something that people think is maybe a little bit ethereal and nice to have, and move it into a place where it's practical and comes with a real commercial necessity against it. So thank you for that, Dan. I love chatting to you, mate. Absolutely confident this wont be our last conversation. So thanks so much for coming on today, mate.


00:46:46 - Dan Dowman

It’s been an absolute pleasure. And let me just say that if people want to, obviously anthem dot zero, if you want to connect with me and see what I'm up to and I'm also hosting a free training. They're going to be regular. So there's going to be one this week and then there's going to be one in a couple of weeks about workplace drama and figuring out what its costing you. So if you're interested in calculating those costs and talking about what you can do about it, I'd love, I'd love to see you there.


00:47:12 - Andy Goram

Yeah. And we'll put links to all of that in the show notes, mate, so people can find you and come and chat. Brilliant, mate. Thanks for coming on. Take care and I'll speak to you again soon.


00:47:23 - Dan Dowman

Absolute pleasure. See you, Andy.


00:47:25 - Andy Goram

See you, mate. Okay, everyone, that was Dan Dowman and if you'd like to find out a bit more about him or any other things we've talked about in today's episode, please check out the show notes. So that concludes today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward. If you have, please like comment and subscribe. It really helps. I'm Andy Goram and you been listening to the sticky from the Inside podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.


Andy Goram is the owner of Bizjuicer, an employee engagement and workplace culture consultancy that's on a mission to help people have more fulfilling work lives. He's also the host of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, which talks to experts on these topics from around the world. 

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