If you aren’t sure what a culture code is the one of the first culture codes was created by Netflix back in 2009. At the time it was so new and inspirational that in 2013 Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg said “[it] may well be the most important document ever to come out of the Valley.” Since then Netflix has become success reinventing itself from a DVD rental business into the massive streaming business it now is.

A culture code may not be the only reason why Netflix has been so successful, but if you believe culture eats strategy for breakfast as I do, then at the very least, it plays a big part.

So what is a culture code?

A company adopting a culture code takes a very different perspective of culture than companies traditionally would. They don’t perceive culture to be the random confluence of the different values, beliefs and actions of their people. Instead, it is something that can be shaped and directed. At its core, it is just the expected cultural norms of the company put down in written format. When executed well it helps guide the behaviours of a company by setting clear expectations for its current and future employees as well as provides a platform in which everyone is given a voice to call out and address bad behaviours in a safe, constructive way.

Although you may be able to guide a culture, it is true that every company will have a different culture. It is also true that that culture will not be for everyone. By clearly articulating a culture code, you improve your ability to attract and hire talent who match your desired culture as well as setting clear expectations for the behaviour of existing staff. Attracting talent that match your target culture, enables you to avoid culture dilution and positively reinforce the desired culture over time. Ultimately this supports the creation of a safer place to work, encouraging a high-performance work culture.

Unlike a traditional set of company values, a culture code goes into clear examples of behaviours that are consistent with the given values.

In Boral where I currently work, we know that we have four important company values like Excellence, but we also know that what excellence looks like from department to department will be different. A culture code helps us clearly state, that Excellence in a digital team looks like behaviours where we build products that our customers love while at one of our Quarry sites Excellence looks like making sure everyone goes home safely every day.

In this article, I’m going to outline a set of facilitation activities that you can use to create a culture code that your leadership team believe in.

Creating your culture code

Because it is difficult to see a culture and we each perceive different values being demonstrated by different actions; it can be hard to create leadership alignment around what the desired culture is.

Instead through the use of a solution-focused coaching approach, we can break the perception gap and build a culture code based on the actions your leaders believe reflect the culture they want. This approach creates broad alignment and engagement around the culture code you articulate but also arms them to champion actively the culture code you define.

The structure flows as below

1. Organise the Workshop — pick the attendees
2. The Miracle Question — create key stories around the actions your leaders expect to see in their perfect end state
3. Brainstorming — idea generation of a broader range of actions that your leaders expect to see in their perfect end state
4. Affinity Mapping — alignment of actions into core behaviours
5. Alignment of behaviours into values (Optional) — if company values exist, alignment of detailed behaviours into these values
6. Draft a Culture Code Deck — drafting of the behaviours, actions and stories into a cohesive deck

1. Organise the Workshop

Organise a one hour workshop and pick the attendees of your workshop based on the importance of seeking their input and gaining their commitment to driving towards a new target culture.

Selecting who should attend is a bit of an art where you should have the most senior leaders possible in the group to provide credibility and endorsement of the desired culture, but also key influential leaders that will be executing and reinforce a shift in culture.

2. The Miracle Question

Start the workshop and ask the miracle question. The miracle question is a solution-focused coaching approach which in this situation assists attendees to imagine what the actions of a desired end state is, without having had to align first on what the problem or the desired end state is vastly simplifying the challenges of building a target culture.

To ask the miracle question — ask the attendees to close their eyes and listen carefully to the question you are about to ask them.

Read out the following question.

After work today, you will each go home and do whatever you need to do for the rest of the day…

Taking care of the children, cooking dinner, watching TV…

It will be time to go to bed… Everybody in your household is quiet, and you are sleeping in peace…

In the middle of the night, a miracle happens and [XXX] has reached its perfect state…

But because this happened while you were sleeping, you have no way of knowing that there was an overnight miracle and our teams have reached nirvana.

So, when you wake up tomorrow morning and you come into work, what do you notice during the day or the week that your teams are doing that makes you say to yourself — “Wow, something must have happened — these teams have reached a perfect state”?

Give each individual 10–15 minutes to craft and write down their story.

Ask each individual to share their story with the other attendees.

3. Brainstorming

Using post-it notes ask all attendees to spend 5 minutes writing down all the actions and behaviours they expect to see in their perfect end state. Brainstorming broadens the range of actions articulated into a more complete and comprehensive view.

Have all attendees post these items onto a wall.

You may optionally ask them to share their actions as they post them on the wall.

4. Affinity Mapping

Ask the team to cluster similar post-it notes together to create a common set of behaviours.

Ask the team to label the behaviour that a culture of actions represents.

5. Alignment of behaviours into values (optional)

If your company already has a set of values, ask the attendees to map the different behaviours created with the value that they align with.

6. Draft a Culture Code Deck

Using the stories, behaviours, actions generated through the course of the workshop, you will need to draft a culture code deck.

The deck should focus on culture but may also optionally cover a broad range of other factors around how your company operates.

In Boral Digital Solutions our culture code covers the values and behaviours we expect to see as well as the broad operating principles our department respect. We anchor these fundamental beliefs with key phrases such as “Done is better than perfect” and “One for all and all for one” so that every individual can use the words of our culture code in everyday work.

Here are a few example culture codes to get you going — even though you might have a culture code remember its only as good as you live it and reinforce it.

Original Netflix Culture Code
Valve’s Employee Handbook
The Little Book of IDEO
RedBalloon — Join the happiness revolution
Atlassian — Coding Culture
How Google Works

Using these six easy steps, building and aligning your leadership team around a culture code doesn’t need to be difficult and it can help drive rapid culture change when done well.

The hardest part is getting buy-in from your leaders that it is worth spending the time together to create one.

Assuming you’ve got the hard part sorted then I highly encourage you to try this approach. Building clarity around the culture you want to create is invaluable in the benefits it will deliver.

Good Luck!!!

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Update 9 Apr 2021
View Create your Culture code Workshop Miro Template‍

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