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The Culture Question: How to Create a Workplace Where People Like to Work
Unfortunately, far too many people don’t like where they work. Some organizations are unhealthy and full of disrespectful behavior. Other workplaces are simply uninspiring. For various reasons, countless people feel trapped, indifferent, or bored at work.
The authors of this book believe that people should be able to like where they work. When employees like the places they work, it’s not only good for their mental health and well-being, it’s also good for their organizations – both financially and otherwise. When a workplace culture is purposely created to be respectful and inspiring, employees are happier, more productive, and more engaged.
By exploring six key elements that make up a healthy workplace culture, The Culture Question answers two fundamental questions: “How does your organization’s culture impact how much people like where they work?” and “What can you do to make it better?”
Discover how to create a workplace where people like to work by focusing on these six elements of healthy workplace culture:
Communicating Your Purpose and Values. Employees are inspired when they work in organizations whose purpose and values resonate with them.
Providing Meaningful Work. Most employees want to work on projects that inspire them, align with what they are good at, and allow them to grow.
Focusing Your Leadership Team on People. How leaders relate to their employees plays a major role in how everyone feels about their workplace.
Building Meaningful Relationships. When employees like the people they work with and for, they are more satisfied and more engaged in their work.
Creating Peak Performing Teams. People are energized when they work together effectively because teams achieve things that no one person could do on their own.
Practicing Constructive Conflict Management. When leaders don’t handle conflict promptly and well, it quickly sours the workplace.
This book includes survey feedback from over 2,400 leaders and employees and resources for putting these ideas into action.
The authors of this book believe that people should be able to like where they work. When employees like the places they work, it’s not only good for their mental health and well-being, it’s also good for their organizations – both financially and otherwise. When a workplace culture is purposely created to be respectful and inspiring, employees are happier, more productive, and more engaged.
By exploring six key elements that make up a healthy workplace culture, The Culture Question answers two fundamental questions: “How does your organization’s culture impact how much people like where they work?” and “What can you do to make it better?”
Discover how to create a workplace where people like to work by focusing on these six elements of healthy workplace culture:
Communicating Your Purpose and Values. Employees are inspired when they work in organizations whose purpose and values resonate with them.
Providing Meaningful Work. Most employees want to work on projects that inspire them, align with what they are good at, and allow them to grow.
Focusing Your Leadership Team on People. How leaders relate to their employees plays a major role in how everyone feels about their workplace.
Building Meaningful Relationships. When employees like the people they work with and for, they are more satisfied and more engaged in their work.
Creating Peak Performing Teams. People are energized when they work together effectively because teams achieve things that no one person could do on their own.
Practicing Constructive Conflict Management. When leaders don’t handle conflict promptly and well, it quickly sours the workplace.
This book includes survey feedback from over 2,400 leaders and employees and resources for putting these ideas into action.
241 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 5, 2019
59 people are currently reading
880 people want to read
About the author
Randy Grieser
8 books12 followersRandy is the Founder and Chief Vision Officer of ACHIEVE Centre for Leadership and the Crisis & Trauma Resource Institute (CTRI), which are two divisions of the same company. He is the author of The Ordinary Leader and co-author of The Culture Question and Don't Blame the Lettuce. Randy is an intuitive and visionary leader who, together with a team of employees and trainers, has positioned these organizations to be leading providers of professional development training.
Randy is passionate about sharing the importance of creating healthy workplace cultures and believes that leadership requires us to always be intentional about what we do and how we do it. He gives presentations on leadership and workplace culture to a wide range of audiences. Randy is a dynamic speaker who delivers insightful presentations that are engaging, humorous, and informative.
Some fun facts about Randy are that he has a graduate degree in Social Work, and earlier in his career, he worked as a Mental Health Counsellor. He is enthusiastic about life and has many interests. He and his son Ben have a shared passion for basketball. He and his wife Heidi have a shared passion for mountain biking. And with his daughter Ana, he shares a passion for climbing mountains and eating good cheese. You can usually find him involved in one of these activities in his spare time.
To learn more about Randy and ACHIEVE, please visit www.achievecentre.com.
Find Randy’s latest thoughts on leadership at TheOrdinaryLeader.com.
Randy is passionate about sharing the importance of creating healthy workplace cultures and believes that leadership requires us to always be intentional about what we do and how we do it. He gives presentations on leadership and workplace culture to a wide range of audiences. Randy is a dynamic speaker who delivers insightful presentations that are engaging, humorous, and informative.
Some fun facts about Randy are that he has a graduate degree in Social Work, and earlier in his career, he worked as a Mental Health Counsellor. He is enthusiastic about life and has many interests. He and his son Ben have a shared passion for basketball. He and his wife Heidi have a shared passion for mountain biking. And with his daughter Ana, he shares a passion for climbing mountains and eating good cheese. You can usually find him involved in one of these activities in his spare time.
To learn more about Randy and ACHIEVE, please visit www.achievecentre.com.
Find Randy’s latest thoughts on leadership at TheOrdinaryLeader.com.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
August 21, 2019
No matter your position, you are already contributing to your organisations culture, so this book is an invitation to be more intentional.
It seeks to explain how culture impacts on employees and what you can do to make it better. This is broken down into sections around:
*Communicating your purpose and values
*Providing meaningful work
*Focusing your leadership team on people
*Building meaningful relationships
I thought this was a pretty good, easy to read, plain language book around culture and the ingredients we all have available to us. The authors run a consulting business and the book was a little heavy on promoting their own organisation (examples from a variety of organisations would have been more compelling), but I would still recommend this to those seeking to learn more about workplace culture and its impact.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
It seeks to explain how culture impacts on employees and what you can do to make it better. This is broken down into sections around:
*Communicating your purpose and values
*Providing meaningful work
*Focusing your leadership team on people
*Building meaningful relationships
I thought this was a pretty good, easy to read, plain language book around culture and the ingredients we all have available to us. The authors run a consulting business and the book was a little heavy on promoting their own organisation (examples from a variety of organisations would have been more compelling), but I would still recommend this to those seeking to learn more about workplace culture and its impact.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
June 9, 2019
*Goodreads giveaway winner*
A lot of good information. Well laid out. If you're an employee, it's a good guide for discovering the culture you're looking for. If you're a manager, it's a good guide for developing a culture that attracts the best employees.
It made me realize a lot of the things that are wrong where I work. There isn't much I can do to change the culture since it is a large organization, but when I pursue other opportunities, it will help me know what I am looking for in an employer.
The only thing that I found awkward is the personal stories by the authors. Instead of "I, Randy"... "I, Wendy"... etc, I think just telling the story in third person would have worked better for me.
A lot of good information. Well laid out. If you're an employee, it's a good guide for discovering the culture you're looking for. If you're a manager, it's a good guide for developing a culture that attracts the best employees.
It made me realize a lot of the things that are wrong where I work. There isn't much I can do to change the culture since it is a large organization, but when I pursue other opportunities, it will help me know what I am looking for in an employer.
The only thing that I found awkward is the personal stories by the authors. Instead of "I, Randy"... "I, Wendy"... etc, I think just telling the story in third person would have worked better for me.
April 24, 2019
This was an easy to read book about culture in the workplace. I stress growing a great culture at my company and I thought it would be interesting to read how to do. What I found though was that most of the information provided in this book were pretty common sense approaches. The book often seemed to go off on other tangents not directly related to culture. I'm glad I read this book but I feel like there wasn't enough practical take-aways. I'd like to have seen more ideas for growing a great culture while sticking with a limited corporate mandated budget.
March 30, 2019
Why waste your life giving 30 years to a company that doesn't care about you. The Culture Question gives so many ideas on how a company can change that one idea. If a company care about you it is willing to let you know that whether it's making it easier to work there, giving perks, or just treating you well. This book covers all of the above.
The authors give you a section that questions your company and gives ideas to change the way your company views its employees and how the workplace affects them. I believe that if more employers read this book the happier Americans would be to go to work and give more of themselves and their time to making their company a force to be reckoned with. A happy employee means a stronger, more productive company. It only makes since.
I highly recommend that employers looking to better their company in the marketplace read this book and learn how to make their company more efficient and effective as a whole. As the authors have stated over and over the happier employee means a stronger and better organization. Perks are only one options the other is making the employee feel just as important as the employer in their position and just as happy when the company wins contracts, jobs, etc. This is a good blueprint on making America a better place to work and live.
This book also gives ideas to keep employees and stops the high turnover and higher cost of continually training new employees to do a job that one life long happy employee could do more effectively than have a new person in that position every few months or years.
The authors give you a section that questions your company and gives ideas to change the way your company views its employees and how the workplace affects them. I believe that if more employers read this book the happier Americans would be to go to work and give more of themselves and their time to making their company a force to be reckoned with. A happy employee means a stronger, more productive company. It only makes since.
I highly recommend that employers looking to better their company in the marketplace read this book and learn how to make their company more efficient and effective as a whole. As the authors have stated over and over the happier employee means a stronger and better organization. Perks are only one options the other is making the employee feel just as important as the employer in their position and just as happy when the company wins contracts, jobs, etc. This is a good blueprint on making America a better place to work and live.
This book also gives ideas to keep employees and stops the high turnover and higher cost of continually training new employees to do a job that one life long happy employee could do more effectively than have a new person in that position every few months or years.
July 26, 2019
A guide for developing a place to work people will enjoy, and why.
This book provides the information, background, research, and application for those interested in building or maintaining a work environment that is pleasant and productive for all parties, most of the time. The authors have done their research and earned their credentials, and this book reads in a clear, organized and relevant style. Of course in business the bottom line is the grail, but in this book that is only alluded to, as the welfare of colleagues is out first in moving toward that holy grail. In addition to theory and concepts were case studies and polls. The authors avoided jargon, and made the process seem realistic and doable. I loved the description of " siloes," and thought this was analogous to what is happening in U.S. Politics, and wouldn't it be nice if we moved toward a unified culture in that organization?
My only wish for this book would that it had an index. Its really difficult to locate specific quotes otherwise, or details one didn't highlight.
I look forward to the application and use of this valuable information.
This book provides the information, background, research, and application for those interested in building or maintaining a work environment that is pleasant and productive for all parties, most of the time. The authors have done their research and earned their credentials, and this book reads in a clear, organized and relevant style. Of course in business the bottom line is the grail, but in this book that is only alluded to, as the welfare of colleagues is out first in moving toward that holy grail. In addition to theory and concepts were case studies and polls. The authors avoided jargon, and made the process seem realistic and doable. I loved the description of " siloes," and thought this was analogous to what is happening in U.S. Politics, and wouldn't it be nice if we moved toward a unified culture in that organization?
My only wish for this book would that it had an index. Its really difficult to locate specific quotes otherwise, or details one didn't highlight.
I look forward to the application and use of this valuable information.
March 19, 2019
I am not a business person by any means - but I am an employee. Like all of us in the workforce, I've worked in good places and bad - and to every single manager I would suggest "The Culture Question." I've even suggested it to friends, who are employees with vision and passion and want to love their workplaces as much as they love the work they do. Recently as part of a hiring committee, I found myself going back to the strategies described in this title when it came time to make suggestions about interview questions and interventions on what type of candidate we were looking for.
This book offers clear and insightful strategies in a manner that is not prescriptive. It's not a how to step-by-step manual, but rather a book that allows space for reflection on what aspects work and do not work within your organization, and what strategies may help create the workplace culture you most desire.
This book offers clear and insightful strategies in a manner that is not prescriptive. It's not a how to step-by-step manual, but rather a book that allows space for reflection on what aspects work and do not work within your organization, and what strategies may help create the workplace culture you most desire.
March 6, 2019
Have you ever read a book that you wish all of your bosses had read? That's this book. The Culture Question is not only an extremely useful and practical read, it's also interesting and easy to digest. If you've been tasked with steering your organization at any level, do yourself and those around you a favor and read this book. It is THE blueprint for a healthy workplace culture. It's unbelievable how many organizations languish with an unhealthy or mediocre culture, unnecessarily, for years. We all spend so many waking hours at our place of work, why wouldn't we want our time there to be as pleasant and fulfilling as possible? This book provides many practical insights and tools for making your workplace a fulfilling and enjoyable place to be. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I cannot recommend it enough.
March 20, 2019
I wish every leader in the organizations I'm connected with would read this book - I'm positive that changes and improvements would certainly follow. The Culture Question is extremely well written and will make you rethink and hopefully remold how your business or organization runs. The authors do a great job of providing examples of real-world environments and scenarios and give strategic, sensible ideas on ways to improve the culture of your workplace. I especially appreciated the section on mission statements and the purpose of your business or organization - it has given me insight and has me thinking differently about the purposes and values of the organizations I'm involved with. This was a great book to read and I'm confident there are take-aways for every reader - I highly recommend it!
October 28, 2020
Everyone seems to be asking the culture question – at least everyone seems to be talking about workplace culture. While understanding and improving culture is incredibly important, it has become almost cliché and a buzzword. Something becomes a buzzword the more people write about it. And workplace culture is one of the most written about topics in business books today.
Into this melee comes a book that asks a simpler question – how can we create a workplace where people like to work? If you don’t frame your workplace culture question around the idea of content and happy employees, this book isn’t for you. But if you want a culture where employees are engaged and excited to be there, put this book on your reading list now.
Read more...
Into this melee comes a book that asks a simpler question – how can we create a workplace where people like to work? If you don’t frame your workplace culture question around the idea of content and happy employees, this book isn’t for you. But if you want a culture where employees are engaged and excited to be there, put this book on your reading list now.
Read more...
April 15, 2019
The Culture Question: How to Create a Workplace Where People Like to Work by Randy Grieser is one of those books that is practical and easy to read. It is filled with advice for Mangers. Randy Grieser explains how to deal the five different types of employees for Mangers but encourages the manger to find his managing style and whether it is good or bad for the work place. There are changes that would make the work place better and they are explored . I book that all mangers and employees should read.
March 21, 2019
This book is one every manager or employer should read and Implicate into creating a positive work environment
So many work environments are not Productive or supportive to there employees. This books sets an example in creating such an environment.
I received this book as a goodreads giveaway for an honest opinion
So many work environments are not Productive or supportive to there employees. This books sets an example in creating such an environment.
I received this book as a goodreads giveaway for an honest opinion
May 29, 2019
I found most of the information in this book to be common sense type stuff. The title says this is a "How To" but it isn't. I also found a lot of the examples given to be impractical for different types of businesses than the one being discussed. I received a digital copy of this book through a goodreads giveaway.
March 30, 2019
I received this book as a goodreads giveaway winner. This book lays out the questions leaders should ask themselves and their teams in order to develop a positive culture in the workplace. Thought provoking questions, with a road map to act on the information to drive culture change.
May 24, 2019
This was a very informative book with concrete, helpful examples of things to do (and not to do) when considering a culture change in your organization. I enjoyed reading it and feel like I learned a lot of things I can immediately use.
June 5, 2019
This book hit the mark with issues my company faces and provides a way for leaders and employees to turn things around. I found it to be practical and clear with actionable changes. Should be read by anyone wanting to build a better team and then organization.
October 28, 2019
There were valuable suggestions in this guide on how to improve culture within your organization. However, I preferred Grieser's The Ordinary Leader and found many of the concepts repeated in that book.
January 11, 2020
Finished this book in two days! Having just facilitated an employee engagement survey it was the perfect read! Easy to follow format, I specifically enjoy the quick go to guides in the back of the book for easy reference. Will be recommending this book to managers!
March 27, 2019
Wonderful book. Easy to digest with great insights I will take moving forward. Would recommend!
April 10, 2019
I won this book from Goodreads Giveaways. Thank you.
Thought provoking and will be incredibly helpful to a project I'm involved with.
Thought provoking and will be incredibly helpful to a project I'm involved with.
April 23, 2019
This is a great book! You spend so many hours at work, why should't it be somewhere pleasant? This book should be mandatory reading for everyone in management.
April 25, 2019
Good information. Something I will refer to again when I am back in the job sector and a leadership position.
September 8, 2019
Great book I would like to give several copies to my companies upper management and see if they recognized what I have, that the changes they are doing is hurting the company.
February 5, 2021
Excellent book for leaders who want employees to enjoy where they work!
September 17, 2023
277: 2023
A good read that is tightly written with good insights and ideas for affecting changes in your organization.
A good read that is tightly written with good insights and ideas for affecting changes in your organization.
August 8, 2021
This book is everything I hate about business books. Grieser can't even be original as each segment just references other books. It's 200+ pages of repetitive, unhelpful, and uninspired business platitudes. I work in an office that could really use a culture makeover but this provided absolutely zero help. But I digress. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. Perhaps the worst is that it may only be marginally helpful to those that would pick it up - which would not be those causing the cultural issues in the first place. The only thing this book does is gives me hope that if I really really wanted to, I could also be a published author.
March 6, 2019
What a helpful and well-researched book for any organization looking to improve their culture!
August 27, 2019
Did not finish. Not my style of writing.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews