Colin D. Ellis's Blog

This year I’ve worked with 20+ teams in 6 (soon to be 7) countries. Different industries, different challenges, different opportunities. Yet, three questions come up time and again, regardless of whether I'm working with a tech start-up in Switzerland or a financial services company in London.

The questions reveal the common barriers that prevent organisations from building the vibrant cultures they need to succeed. Here's what people have really wanted to know this year.

1. How do we get leaders to understand the value of investing in culture?

This is where everything starts. Without leadership commitment, you're wasting your time and money.

Leaders need to understand that culture isn't a nice-to-have or this year’s HR initiative. It's the foundation for every result they're chasing - service quality, sales targets, project delivery, product excellence, customer satisfaction and so on. None of these things happen consistently without a great culture underpinning them.

Many leaders have good intentions and ensure that money is ring-fenced at the start of the financial year, but then remove the budget when things get tight. They'll start the year full of promise, using words like 'transformation' and 'evolution', then quietly deprioritise culture work the moment pressure mounts elsewhere.

This confirms to employees that culture was never really important, and your high performers will leave for employers who actually so what they say they will.

So how do you get leaders on board? 

Show them the cost of not investing. Calculate the attrition rates, the lost productivity from disengaged staff, the projects that failed because collaboration broke down. Make it tangible. Then show them what's possible - organisations that invest properly in culture see engagement scores rise by 30% in three months and productivity (whatever that means for you - sales, innovation etc.) accelerates.

Most leaders aren’t cynical about the need to invest in culture, they’re sceptical and are waiting for someone to prove to them why they should.

2. Who's actually responsible for culture?

Everyone. But that's not a cop-out answer, there are critical nuances.

Leaders set the tone. If they don't show up to culture initiatives, if they tolerate poor behaviour, if they say one thing and do another, the culture very quickly stagnates.

Middle managers activate it. They're the ones who translate cultural intent into daily action. They hold people accountable, they model the behaviours, they call out what's not acceptable. If your managers don't have the skills to do this, invest in developing them. The layer of ‘tar’ that I consistently see stuck between senior leaders and employees exists because we promote people based on technical expertise rather than people skills.

Employees own it. There needs to be a common language around culture that everyone understands and managers need to involve employees in the definition of culture. Then everyone needs to show up with the intention of contributing positively. The culture will only ever be as good as the bad behaviour it's willing to ignore, and that's everyone's responsibility to speak up about.

3. When will we see returns on our culture work?

Ah, the question that CFOs love to ask! The honest answer: it depends on your foundations.

If you're starting from a low bar - toxic behaviour, unsafe environment, no clear purpose, misaligned values, low trust - expect 12 to 18 months before you see substantial returns. You're rebuilding from the ground up and that takes time.

If you have decent foundations but need to evolve, perhaps post-merger, after rapid growth, or following leadership changes, you're looking at 6 to 12 months to see meaningful improvements.

But here's what many people don't realise: if you do the work properly, wins can come faster than that. Teams I've worked with have seen engagement scores rise by 30% in just three months. Why? Because when you give people the knowledge and autonomy to shape their own culture, motivation shifts immediately and people take responsibility for their conditions willingly.

The key is doing the work properly. Define your culture deliberately. Give managers the skills to activate it. Hold people accountable. Celebrate progress. Don't treat it as a box-ticking exercise or expect it to magically sort itself out.

Culture evolves every day. If you're not deliberately improving it, it's likely getting worse.

These three questions aren't going away. But once you understand what's really being asked, the path forward becomes clearer.

What question would you like to ask? Drop me a note at colin@colindellis.com

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To find out more about the work I do to help organisations achieve their culture goals, head to www.colindellis.com

When the feedback from the culture survey is in, two words quickly leap to the top of the priority list; ‘quick wins’. The assumption that, in order to meaningfully address the challenges posed by employees, the easy stuff should be done first.

However, most employees see this for what it is. Avoidance of the work that really matters.

The hard stuff is where culture change actually happens. Performance management systems that haven't been updated since 2012. Leaders who undermine their teams. Accountability that only applies to some people, not everyone. These are the issues that keep your best people awake at night and eventually drive them out the door.

Tackling them takes time, courage, and sustained effort. That's precisely why most organisations won't do it. They'd rather tick a few boxes and claim victory than face the uncomfortable conversations that real change demands.

Yet, when you prioritise slow wins trust immediately builds because employees see that you're serious about change. The toxic behaviours that everyone tolerates get addressed first, not last. Systems that frustrate people and drain energy and time get fixed; and work actually becomes easier. Employees are then compelled to address the quick wins themselves.

Meaningful culture change isn't won through gestures or addressing the things that seem ‘quick’. It's won through addressing the structural, behavioural, and systemic issues that genuinely impact how people experience work.

Stop ticking things off a list and start fixing what's broken. The slow win is sometimes the only win that matters.

I received an email from a client last week to tell me that not only has engagement in the team increased by 21% in 9 months, but also that they are 50% ahead of their sales target for this year.

Yet, ‘culture change is hard to measure’ is still a statement regularly heard at leadership team meetings when the conversation about investment in culture is broached by HR leaders.

However, once the investment is made into activity that provides managers and employees with the practical skills to work differently, it’s been proven (and not just by me!) that organisations will eventually see improvements in:

Employee happiness

Engagement

Productivity

Retention

Sickness rates

Security incidents

Safety incidents

Reputation

Sales

Market share

It’s not hard to measure culture change (as my opening attests), it's just hard for leaders to make the decision to invest in it knowing that they might not see any tangible results for up to 6 months.

Yet once the change starts it’s impossible to stop and investment in culture becomes the tangible gift that keeps giving.

Many leaders and managers talk about the need for culture change; and the key to being able to successfully design and implement the required future state, starts with an understanding of the elements of culture, a model that I call The Culture Dial™. 

My research and work around the world over the last 10 years found that consistently successful organisations put time, thought and effort into the following elements of culture, which they can then ‘dial’ up and down as required to achieve success. They are as follows:

Purpose is the reason an organisation exists and is a short statement of the good that it wishes to do. It is the ‘north star’ and is strongly linked to its reputation and brand. Purpose guides strategy and rarely changes.

Vision is a short statement that sparks inspiration and motivation towards the achievement of the purpose. The vision is the basis for day-to-day decision-making and is refreshed with each strategy.

Values are like fingerprints. Each value is a short statement and they are unique to your business. They differentiate you from the competition and they are the things you use to hire and fire. They change as the organisation grows.

All three of these elements are built and defined at an enterprise level. When done well they speak to our limbic system - they spark feelings - and set the tone for the work that needs to be done by managers at a team level in order to actively live them.

Managers need to be good at building relationships and understanding between people. Understanding self and others is the foundation for all teamwork. It generates empathy, kindness, compassion and respect. The sharing of diverse perspectives and views enhances relationships.

Communication is a very specific skill that very few of us master organically. It recognises that different personalities and generations communicate in different ways. If managers’ words are to have an impact they need to understand how to deliver a message so that everyone understands it.

In a perfect world everyone would know how to behave to get the job done efficiently and respectfully, unfortunately that’s not always the case. Also, the behaviours required to be successful can differ from team to team. Managers need to not only understand how to dial behaviours up and down but also to deal with those that get in the way of productive work.

Psychological Safety is not an element in and of itself, however, it’s critically important and can only exist where there are agreements made on behaviour.

Collaboration is the art of working together. Different goals require different actions. Managers orchestrate how people cooperate ensuring that communication is effective and that timely decisions are made to maintain momentum.

Finally, managers ensure that creativity remains a focus to drive future innovation whilst also establishing an environment where failure is seen as a learning opportunity, rather than a stick to beat people with. Innovation isn’t just the creation of big ideas through AI, it’s the mechanism whereby we continually tweak how we work to be the best it can be.

When managers intentionally build these elements with their teams it generates belonging, engagement and provides the basis for feedback and a commitment to each other, which is where consistent high performance is achieved.

When leaders and managers understand how to ‘dial’ the elements of culture up and down, priorities are clear, burn out is reduced and goals are achieved through happy staff. Which organisation or team doesn’t want that?

To download a .PDF version of this document, head to www.colindellis.com/culture-by-design or click the image below.

Download my new white paper and find out how to intentionally build a great culture.

It’s tempting to think that once you reach a particular age, level in the hierarchy, breadth of experience or achieved a particular result, that your self-development is done. Yet there is always something else you can do to positively impact either the people around you or the results the organisation is looking to achieve.

Being a better human or teammate is something we should always work on. Don’t be in a rush to give up, you have so much to offer. You’re not done yet.

The moment learning becomes boring, any emotional capital you may have built with your employees starts to erode. Yet according to the emails and messages that I receive, some workplace learning programmes feel like punishment rather than possibility.

When learning is enjoyable, you're not just being nice to people, you're unlocking value that transforms both individual performance and organisational results.

Research shows that when people enjoy learning through practical knowledge, hands-on activities, group discussion and laughter, active learners retain 93.5% of information compared to only 79% for passive learners after one month. 

Not only that, but enjoyable learning experiences trigger neurological changes that enhance creativity, problem-solving abilities, and collaborative behaviours. Your people don't just remember more, they innovate more…whilst they're learning!

Traditional learning programmes often prioritise coverage or completion over comprehension. Many virtual learning programmes suffer from this. They take a ‘sit here and watch this’ approach rather than a ‘be educated and entertained’ one.

The focus becomes ticking boxes rather than transforming capabilities. When learning becomes enjoyable, you shift from compliance-driven behaviour to curiosity-driven change.

This shift creates accelerated expertise development. People willingly invest discretionary time in skills that they feel will benefit them, through both individual career progression and organisational competency. 

I pride myself on building enjoyable learning experiences. I recognise that teams that learn together build stronger working relationships and greater psychological safety. People stay where they grow. When learning is engaging and meaningful, your best talent chooses to build their future with you rather than elsewhere.

Making learning enjoyable is also about cultural transformation. When leaders demonstrate that growth can be both rigorous and rewarding, they give permission for individualism, intelligent risk-taking, and continuous improvement.

This creates a multiplier effect across the organisation. Teams become more resilient because they're constantly adapting and evolving. Performance improves because learning becomes embedded in daily work rather than separated from it. Innovation accelerates because people feel safe to explore new ideas. 

Start by auditing your current learning experiences. Ask your people one simple question: "Would you choose to participate in this learning opportunity if it wasn't mandatory?" If the answer is no, redesign the experience around three pillars. 

Engage - build programmes the deliver capabilities that employees say they need and give them agency over how, when and what they learn

Educate - ensure that the skills provided are practical and can be immediately applied. Make learning a shared experience that reinforces accountability

Entertain - deliver with lightness, energy and humour using a range of techniques to speak to every personality and generation. There has to be something for everyone

When learning is enjoyable, people are more engaged, teams become more effective, and organisations become more adaptable. The investment in making learning engaging pays dividends in outcomes, innovation, and retention.

Your culture is built through the experiences you create. Make learning one of the best experiences your people have, and watch how it transforms everything else.

Find out more about my learning experiences at www.colindellis.com/workshops

Here’s some essential reading whilst I’m away. Download my new white paper by clicking the image above.

In a 1971 paper, economist and future Nobel Prize winner Herbert A. Simon observed: "What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." His point was prescient, when we have abundance in one area, we inevitably create scarcity elsewhere.

Consider an American diner menu with 200 options. That wealth of choice creates a poverty of decision-making ability, you spend more time deciding than enjoying your meal!

Work operates identically. When employees juggle countless applications, notifications, and information streams (most trivial, some important) they inevitably develop a poverty of attention. This manifests itself as overwhelm, procrastination, and disengagement from meaningful work.

Recent research validates Simon's prediction. 92% of employers now identify workplace distractions as a major organisational problem. Workers are constantly interrupted and it can take as long as 15 minutes to refocus.

The cultural cost is staggering: US businesses alone lose $650bn annually to distracted employees. Yet most organisations continue flooding workers with applications and information rather than protecting their attention.

Vibrant cultures recognise attention as their most precious resource. They don't just identify tools and activities that generate attention poverty, they systematically eliminate them, freeing up time to do work that matters.

The question isn't whether your organisation has an attention problem, it's whether you're brave enough to solve it. Because in a distracted world, sustained focus becomes your greatest cultural differentiator.

Download my new white paper and find out how to intentionally build a great culture.

Train managers on how to build culture - Managers are the difference between success and failure, yet many accidentally destroy culture because they've never been taught how to build it. Invest in proper culture training for your managers—it's the difference between a team that thrives and one that merely survives. Find out more about what they need to know by clicking here.

Give employees time and opportunity to connect with each other - Relationships are the foundation of every high-performing culture, yet most organisations expect them to happen by magic. Create structured opportunities for genuine connection, to help people to understand and support each other.

Refresh the values as the business grows and changes - Values that were designed five years ago are unlikely to be relevant today, yet most companies cling to outdated ideals that no longer serve their reality. Running a regular values refresh isn't betraying your foundations, it's ensuring your culture grows with your business rather than holding it back. Find out more here.

Celebrate success - Recognition that happens months after the achievement has lost all its power to motivate and inspire. Worse still are the achievements that go unrecognised! Make celebration immediate, specific, and visible, because people repeat what gets recognised.

Performance manage those that undermine safety - Toxic behaviour spreads faster than good culture can get built, yet many leaders hope difficult people will simply improve on their own without the need for intervention. Address culture undermining swiftly because your best people are watching how you handle your worst.

Download my new white paper and find out how to intentionally build a great culture.

One of the many workplace culture stories - and there have been many! - you may have missed this month is that a British tribunal found that an employee who called was sacked on the spot for calling her boss a d***head was unfairly dismissed. 

The judge ruled that the company had not “acted reasonably in all the circumstances in treating [her] conduct as a sufficient reason to dismiss her”.

“She made a one-off comment to her line manager about him and a director of the business. The comment was made during a heated meeting.”

“Whilst her comment was not acceptable, there is no suggestion that she had made such comments previously. Further … this one-off comment did not amount to gross misconduct or misconduct so serious to justify summary dismissal.”

Full details of the conversation can be found here.

Of course, the media have a field day with stories like these. Politics is often dragged into it, as is ‘the past’ and the story is reduced to a puff piece that never gets to the root cause of the issue.

It’s fair to say that many of us (I’m not excluded from this!) have called our bosses names at various times. It’s not something that any of us are proud of, it’s not something we want to do and it’s never something that we’re keen to repeat.

Nobody wants to work in a culture where name calling, back-biting and gossip are commonplace.

Of course, sometimes it feels like a pressure release valve! It’s cleansing and it’s just given me an idea for a toxic boss day spa, but that’s for another blog.

The fact is, work can be frustrating, especially when you’re being managed by someone who doesn’t have the skills to manage or who is unaware of due process. Regular readers of the blog will know that I have empathy for managers. They’re often thrust into people leadership roles without having, or being provided with the skills, to actively do the job.

That’s not to say that employees are absolved of blame for losing control of their emotions, but we’re human, we’re prone to do that every now and then.

There are many blogs, articles and speakers who preach that we should be ‘the best version of ourselves all of the time’. Yet, this is simply not possible, especially if your boss is a d***head!

That said, employees need to at least try to keep their emotions in check. If you feel any frustration with those above you, bite your tongue, excuse yourself and go for a walk or else share your frustrations outside the office with your parents, partner or pet. They don’t really care, but are happy to listen to you!

However, organisations need to train managers to be managers, this is often the root cause of almost all of these types of stories. Once that’s been completed they need to take a balanced approach to emotional outbursts. Rather than - as happened here - seeking to dismiss an employee for an uncharacteristic outburst as well as exposing themselves to the media, they need to take a breath.

Try to understand the context and the personality. What might be happening in their world? Is this the first time they have done this? Do you have a culture in which behaviours have been defined so that people understand what’s acceptable and what’s not? Are you fully aware of the policy before enacting it?

Again, I’m not saying for one minute that calling your boss names is either right, fair (they’re human too) or shouldn’t be met with some kind of reprimand. I’m simply saying that in the heat of the moment we often say things we don’t mean and as humans trying to do the best we can with what we have, that requires greater understanding rather than seeking to dismiss immediately.

Download my new white paper and find out how to intentionally build a great culture.

If you only watch one episode of this seven-part series of Culture Speak, make it this one. In episode 5, I discuss the characteristics of a toxic culture, where - if swift action isn’t taken - lives, results and reputations can be ruined. I discuss the three levels of toxicity, how to spot it and how to deal with it so that you don’t ever get to level two.

It is available as a video series on YouTube (below) or as a podcast at the following links:

Spotify Podcasts: Click here

Apple Podcasts: Click here