Your culture IS your strategy.
When Courtney arrived for her job interview at Te Ao Mārama School in Hamilton, she knew there was something different about the school. Rather than being interviewed by a panel of senior teachers or school leaders, Courtney found herself facing an even tougher jury: a team of students who were ready to drill her with questions like, “What do you enjoy most about teaching?” and “What’s your favourite colour?” Having completed their set of interview questions, the students then performed a magic trick for Courtney before sending her on her way. She later learned that another candidate was asked to play a game of musical Simon with the students as part of their interview.
The student interview panel, magic trick and all, was designed by the school to achieve several things: to put applicants at ease to ensure they put their best foot forward in interviews; to assess how easily they relate to students; and perhaps most importantly, to communicate a message about the organisational culture at Te Ao Mārama: that students are at the heart of everything we do.
What is organisational culture?
Organisational culture is “the complex pattern of norms, attitudes, beliefs, behaviours, values, ceremonies, traditions, and myths that are deeply ingrained in the very core of the organisation,” (Barth, 2002, p. 7). Put another way, culture is the way we do things around here, and Courtney’s interview made it clear that at Te Ao Mārama the way they do things is student-centred and fun.
But as Courtney realised, she had actually been given a clear steer on this before she had even set foot in the school. Prospective applicants were sent an information pack about the school’s student-centred vision and values, and also invited on a personalised tour of the school before making their decision to apply. This series of steps was carefully designed to ensure applicants were a good fit for the culture of the school and vice versa.
On interview day, applicants are taken from the student interview panel into the staff room to relax and have a cup of coffee with a couple of existing staff members. As Courtney sat chatting over coffee, she wondered when the formal part of her interview might begin. Later, she realised that the coffee chat was actually part of the interview process: an informal assessment of how well she related to team members. This conversational interview was an example of the school living its mantra of ‘whiria te tāngata’, or ‘weaving people together’. Courtney was being given a chance to connect with her future colleagues.
Culture as strategy
Leadership guru Peter Drucker once famously observed that, ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast,’ warning leaders that the most carefully-prepared change management strategy or action plan is unlikely to be successful if organisational culture runs counter to it. Similarly, Seth Godin argues that “culture beats strategy—so much that culture is strategy. If you want to make change, begin by making culture” (Godin, 2017).
Culture begins at the top
At the beginning of any school day, you’ll find Te Ao Mārama’s Principal Tony Grey walking the school with his trademark cup of coffee, talking and joking with students, checking in with teachers and seeing where help is needed. As one teacher observed, “He’s carrying a cup of coffee—not a clipboard. That means so much. He’s checking in on us; not checking up.” Tony’s supportive presence in the learning environment is an example of him leading a culture of care and service from the top. This is no accident: while Tony views organisational culture as being everyone’s responsibility, as principal he knows he holds a particular duty for its development: “Ultimately I’m responsible for staff culture and the core responsibility of my leadership is to create, lead and sustain culture,” he says. But he doesn’t do it on his own: “It’s embedded in all of us. It’s not in one person.”
The work the whole staff puts into developing a strong organisational culture has led to extraordinary results. When surveyed recently 100% of the staff strongly agreed with the statement “the morale in this school is high,” while over 97% strongly agreed that “staff take pride in this school.”
What shapes organisational culture?
Organisational culture like this doesn’t grow by accident. Deal & Kennedy argue that leaders build and maintain organisational culture using a suite of different tools:
“History yields values. Values create focus and shared behavior. Heroic figures exemplify core values and beliefs. Rituals and ceremony dramatize values and summon the collective spirit. Stories broadcast heroic exploits, reinforce core values, and provide delightful material for company events” (Deal & Kennedy, 2000, p. 3).
The shared values at the heart of Te Ao Mārama’s culture are easy to spot; in fact they’re the first thing you see when you walk in the door. Up on the wall in a stylish collection of photo frames is the set of expressions staff have agreed are the values that should shape their behaviour. Statements like, “we are comfortable being uncomfortable”, “we discuss the undiscussables”, and “we hold our ideas lightly” remind people of the importance of remaining open, curious and eager to learn. These statements also act as a cultural guidance for newcomers.
When new staff like Courtney join the school, their induction isn’t limited to the first day of school either: each term, all new staff are released from classes regularly to meet with senior leaders in recognition that their induction needs may change over time, and that inductees are just as likely to require support or have questions after their first week or month as they are on their first day.
Another interesting thing happens when a new staff member joins their teaching team: that team revisits their collaborative norms: the set of agreed expectations that guide how the team works together. Revisiting these norms not only facilitates conversations about how to be effective as a team, it also signals that all team members—including the newest—have a role in ensuring the team is successful. It’s further evidence of the importance of another value displayed on the staff room wall: “The three most important things in our school are... relationships, relationships and relationships”.
Rituals and ceremonies
Alongside shared values, rituals and ceremonies are powerful tools for developing culture. One ritual that takes place when new staff join the school is that they choose a photo of themselves with their family to go up on the ‘whānau wall’. Each new photo is placed alongside the existing pictures of staff and their families, doing things they enjoy: hiking, fishing, reading, relaxing. When people introduce their families and talk about the activities taking place, they deepen their connections with the others in the room and take their literal and metaphorical place at the heart of the school family.
But rituals don’t just centre around new staff at Te Ao Mārama. For example coffee and food provide opportunities to remind people how much they are appreciated. A common ritual is ‘BBQ Friday’ when staff gather to eat together at lunchtime, while the final day of each term is a bit more of a treat: a traditional roast meal; a Chinese banquet; soup and bread rolls; or meat, vegetarian and vegan pie day. At these celebrations, teaching and support staff come together to break bread, as if to say: we’re a team; we’re a family; this is what we do.
A bit of friendly rivalry doesn’t go astray either: during one of the school’s professional learning retreats, staff were put into teams for a ‘Masterchef’ challenge, having to take a mystery box of ingredients and prepare a meal for colleagues as part of a progressive dinner, while also designing table arrangements and costumes. While fun, the activity also reinforced an important message for teams: working as a team is serious fun, and together we can achieve more than we can alone.
Heroic figures
Mid-way through my meeting with Principal Tony, Amy—one of the ‘heroic figures’ of the school—pops her head around the door to take my coffee order. Amy’s job, Tony tells me, is to ‘bless everyone with food’ and her role includes not only organising catering, snacks and lunches when necessary, but also to make coffee for visitors to the school, particularly during morning meetings. Once again this element of culture, championed by ‘heroic figures’ is designed to ensure people feel they can be their best selves in their jobs, which creates a culture of care that ultimately benefits students. Tony also tells me that if one of the staff wants to do something special or say thank you to a colleague, all they have to do is open the ‘Favourite Things’ document on the school’s computer system. This list has three small things that each staff member enjoys: their favourite chocolate bar, music, flowers and other simple things, all useful as small tokens of appreciation.
“We wanted to make it easy to say thanks,” he says.
All staff are heroic figures in their own way, including the support staff who keep the non-teaching side of the school running. During one of the regular ‘support staff appreciation weeks’, superhero posters appeared in the staff room, each celebrating the work of one of the ‘support crew’: from the reception desk to the accounts staff, to the caretaker, each with personalised comments from teaching staff. A ‘did you know?’ game ran all week inviting people to match up fun facts with the correct staff member. The message about culture? Getting to know people is important... but so is having fun, because working in a school is more than just a job.
The stories we tell ourselves.
Lt. Gen. David Morrison has a slightly different definition of organisational culture, arguing it’s “the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.” When asked for a story that seemed to typify their school culture, several Te Ao Mārama staff offered the example of what happened with Deborah. As a new staff member who had accepted a position but not yet started, Deborah had an accident, recuperation from which meant her start date was delayed. Although none of the staff outside the interviewing team had ever met Deborah, Te Ao Mārama’s culture of care kicked in and staff members began offering rides, preparing baking and delivering meals to Deborah and her family.
As one staff member said: “We hardly knew her, but that’s the way we do things around here. That’s our culture.”
Tony Grey sees a direct connection between organisational culture and student learning and achievement: “If the staff are loving what they are doing as a team; have every resource they need,” he says “If they are inspired, fresh and feeling charged they’ll do the best for the students.” That’s why he says he invests so much time into developing and maintaining culture.
“You get so much more out of people when the culture is right.”
References:
Barth, R. S. (2002). The Culture Builder. Educational Leadership, 2002(59), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1002/bl.59
Godin, S. (2017). Making change (in multiples). Retrieved April 2, 2020, from https://seths.blog/2017/02/making-change-in-multiples/
