5 C’s of a Conscious Company Culture
These are the 5 elements of a strong, conscious culture
This newsletter is dedicated to bringing more conscious leadership to the workplace. Every week, I write about concepts that will help you increase your conscious leadership and create environments where all stakeholders can truly thrive. It starts with the individual, but it expands to the entire organization.
The next step beyond working on your own conscious leadership is to create a conscious culture, where all staff can develop their own conscious leadership. Cultivating a conscious culture is so important—and so desperately needed—in the workplace, that for the next several weeks we’re going to look at the 5 elements of a strong conscious culture.
Let’s start with defining what culture is. The term culture comes from the Latin cultus, which means care or cultivation. Put in a more practical way, culture is “the way we do things around here.” A company can claim a certain culture publicly, but the daily experience of its staff is the real culture.
Culture is so important that it is often a deciding factor in whether a candidate joins a company and how long they stay. In fact, 35% of workers would turn down the “perfect job” if they didn’t feel it was the right culture fit. Glassdoor and Deloitte Consulting found that the number one thing an employee cites when recommending their place to work is the culture.
Unfortunately, many companies don’t intentionally—or consciously—cultivate a strong culture. In his book Conscious Leadership, John Mackey explains what happens instead: “[T]he initial culture of an organization is usually created, unconsciously, by the original founders. Their strengths and weaknesses become the default character of the organizational culture.”
This is why conscious leadership is so important: leaders have to become aware of their strengths and weaknesses and how they become the default character of their company. By increasing their awareness and intentionally working on their leadership, they can create a culture where everyone gets to develop and thrive.
Mackey goes on to observe, “Once you’ve hired the right people for the team, the next challenge is to continue to develop a culture in which individuals and teams can grow and thrive. It’s hard to overestimate the power of culture in the success of the organization.”
Most experienced business and organization leaders would agree with Mackey’s assertion. Culture is integral to their success. Management guru Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” The point here is that regardless of how stellar your strategy, if your team culture is unhealthy, you will not reach your desired goals. While the vision is important, how you achieve it is just as important.
Having coached clients across many industries, including international corporations, government, and nonprofits, I have found that there are typically 5 things that employees need and want from their organization culture. And because I like alliteration, I summarized them as the 5 C’s of a Conscious Company Culture:
Cause
Clarity
Care
Communication
Cultivation
Over the next month, we’ll take a look at each of these elements and how you can create a more conscious culture for your organization. As you consider how you can cultivate a more conscious culture, make the commitment to invest in your own conscious leadership. Because your growth precipitates the growth of a strong culture. John Mackey explains why:
“As leaders, it is very difficult to develop any team beyond our own level of consciousness. Our own level of development can provide an upward pull on those around us, but it can also act as a ceiling. This is one more reason why it is important that we practice the virtue of continuously learning and growing.”
As you learn about the 5 C’s of a Conscious Culture, think about how you can embody each of them in your daily interactions. This sets the tone for the rest of the team and lays a solid foundation for a strong, conscious culture.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant, and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
Contact her to develop your conscious leadership and transform your organization into the workplace of the future.
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