Detoxing Your Culture

Toxic culture is the biggest risk that every organisation around the world has. It can ruin lives, ruin reputations and of course, ruin results.

To celebrate the launch of Colin’s new book ‘Detox Your Culture’ we talk about what toxic culture is, the conditions that cause it to arise and what organisations can do to mitigate the risk of it ever occurring in the first place.

---

Join us as we reveal strategies to close the gap and craft a workplace where values are not just spoken, but lived and breathed, paving the way for a more authentic and engaging organisational culture.

Instagram: @insideoutculture

Email your questions to: [e-mail]

Receive the Culture Leaders Action Sheet: bit.ly/iocpmail

Episode Transcript

Colin (00:02):
Welcome to the Inside Out Culture Podcast, where we look
at insides of working cultureand provide ideas, insights and
actions for you to take on theoutside.

Cath (00:11):
I'm Colin Ellis and I'm Cath Bishop, and in each episode
we'll examine a differentquestion or a different
organization, and we'll use casestudies, research and our own
insights and experiences to helpyou change the way things get
done in your world.

Colin (00:27):
We hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Please like, subscribe and, ofcourse, let us know what you
think.
Hello everybody and welcome toanother episode of the Inside
Out Culture podcast, and todaywe are talking about detoxing
your culture.
I feel like there's a lot wecan talk about, Cath.
So this question of toxicculture is still frequenting

(00:51):
newspaper headlines and you seeit in every section.
You see it in the sportssection, you see it in the
society and politics section,you see it in the business
section.
We've had numerous examplesover the summer.
We've had numerous examplesover the summer.
We've had strictly and thefurore there, um, hitting the
headlines about, yeah, toxiccultures inside those dancing

(01:12):
practice rooms.
We've seen issues come uparound sports, the olympics, and
we've actually just had thegrenfell report come out this
week and that makes really hardreading where you see toxic
cultures across manufacturers,governments, you know everybody
involved really.
And so that's what we want todo is to think about what is a

(01:36):
toxic culture?
Do we understand it enough?
And then what are the thingsthat we need to be doing as
leaders, managers, colleagues,in order to guard better against
it?
So how do you define what toxicculture means?
It's quite a broad term.
It can look really different,can't it, in different contexts.
How do you start to define this, colin?
Well, I think that's true.

(01:56):
I think it does look differentin different contexts, Cath, and
I think one of the things I'malways at pains to point out is
just because somebody sayssomething's toxic doesn't
necessarily mean that it is, butit's a signal that something
should be investigated.
And often when we think abouttoxic cultures we kind of go to
the most harrowing elements ofthat bullying, harassment,

(02:20):
racism, sexism, misogyny,homophobia, ageism.
You know kind of assault, youknow physical, verbal.
It can be as simple and I usethat word advisedly as a lack of
trust, poor communication,hubris, inequity of pay, poor

(02:41):
work-life balance.
You know, we've had the.
Australia are the latest companyto implement the rights to
disconnect laws.
We're now legislating culturebecause we don't trust business
to not impinge on time.
So you know there are realgradings.
I always say there's like threegrades.
There's like a level where it'sconsistently combatant, where
everything feels like a fight,everything feels like a battle.

(03:03):
There's a corrosive culture andthat's really around bullying,
harassment, where we're slowlyebbing away at someone's kind of
personal physical safety andthen there's harmful.
So yeah, it exists at differentlevels for different people.
I feel.
And you've been really collatingstories, information, details,

(03:25):
advice, tips, strategies, toolsin a brilliant book that's just
come out Detox your Culture.
So we're going to come.
I'm going to ask you a bit moreabout that sort of later in our
discussion.
But, yeah, one of the thingsthat comes out of your
descriptions there is that weare thinking about human
behaviours and to understand howtoxic a culture is, we need to

(03:47):
be tuning into that, we need tobe noticing that, caring about
that, rewarding or shaping orchanging or commenting or
acknowledging behaviours.
And it's almost when that levelis absent from our goal setting,
from our conversations, fromhow we want to improve, how we
have meetings, when we don'ttalk about the behavioural
aspects, then chances aresomething's happening under the

(04:09):
surface we're all aware of butwe're not dealing with, and then
that kind of escalates oftendoesn't it to a point then we've
hit a crisis, and so I stillsee there's this sort of
transactional world in lots oforganisations.
We're talking, talking abouttasks, we're talking about
numbers, we're ticking thingsoff.
We're not talking about humanbehavior and how we went about

(04:31):
those tasks, the experience wecreated together as teams in
pursuit of the numbers thatwe're now looking at in the
spreadsheet.
It's this sort of disconnect,but you know, an instrumental
view it's sometimes described ofas the organisation, as
something quite clinical, quitematerial, and ignoring this
really, really important humanbehavioural aspect of what's

(04:52):
going on.
And that's for me a sign of aculture that isn't in a great
space is where nobody's reallyable to discuss role model and
be comfortable calling outbehavioural issues.
You know it's almost anon-topic and that means then
you're no longer shaping itpositively.
What do you think are some ofthe sort of key things that we

(05:14):
need to do more of to guardagainst a toxic culture?
Given it's quite broad.
How do we help people navigatesomething that they perhaps feel
quite uncertain of, unsure of,because it's not one thing, is
it?
It could be lack of trust,could be lack of inclusion,
could be something really clear,a breach of a rule over here

(05:35):
around safety or respect.
But, given that breadth, whatare the approaches that leaders
should be following, thinkingabout involving their teams in
Well, I think, Cath, it startswith as simple as recognising
that every human being withinthe workplace is just trying to
do the best with what they canwith what they've got, and I

(05:59):
think there's a real lack ofhumanity sometimes in our
organisations.
Empathy is missing a lot of thetime and empathy is really
really hard to do, but it'sreally really worthwhile.
Interestingly, there was aninterview with Luis de la Fuente
, who is the national coach ofSpain, who won the World Cup,
and we talked about him on thepodcast.
There was an interview with himin the Guardian today and he

(06:21):
said you know, he said somethingalong the lines of you know,
it's okay to show humanity, it'snot a weakness, and I think
often our workplaces they lackhumanity and this is what leads
to toxicity.
Now, there's still this view andwe discussed it on our
questions episode last weekaround the sense of fluffiness,
the fact that it's triggering ishumanity is that basic sense of

(06:46):
every human is here to do thebest that they can with what
they've got.
And what we need to do is setexpectations, not only about the
work that we expect, thequality levels, all of these
kinds of things, but also aboutthe behavior that we demonstrate
towards each other, and soevery time I work with an
organization Cath, on theirculture the first thing that I
do is I spend literally spendhalf a day almost just on

(07:07):
humanity, emotional intelligence, building connections between
people, because when you can seethat the person that you're
working with is someone's father, son, daughter, mother, you
know, whatever it might be, yousee them in a completely
different light, different light, and I think that's where it
starts.
You know, when we're mitigatingthe risk of toxicity is to
recognize you're working withother human beings who are just

(07:29):
trying to do the best they canwith what they've got and that
is for me part of a, you know,more holistic approach.
Perhaps you know a whole, awholeness approach to what, what
, who we are.
So I'm not just a lawyer or anathlete or an engineer or
whatever it is.
On my job title, yeah, as yousay, I'm a person that, as well
as being a lawyer or an engineer, I'm a mother and a daughter,

(07:52):
and you know, I've got thesechallenges here, and health
things are important to me and Ilike to play netball, whatever
it might be.
It's that kind of wholenessthat actually enables us usually
to turn up in a much better wayin what we have to do as a
lawyer, an engineer, whatever itis.
But it also then means we're inthis very human context rather
than a kind of machine-likecontext that we've been in

(08:14):
before, and for me, this oftenties into one of the angles I
like to come into.
It is to be thinking about whatdoes success look like?
So, not in terms of just thenumbers 10% growth, this kind of
sales target but actuallysituating those numbers in a
human context.
So who's going to be impactedby those?
What will you know?

(08:35):
How will that help thiscommunity, these clients, this
society?
How are we impacted by this,when, if you achieve all of
these numbers, what's the humanresults at the end of that?
And to always kind of keepputting in the human stories
behind things.
So we have that sense of we'repart of something greater than
ourselves, we're connected,we're clearer about what the

(08:57):
purpose is, and that's, you know, again, the power of purpose is
something that is often afactor in a culture.
That that not toxic, because weknow why we're here and why it
matters and why we need to dealwith difficult stuff and why we
might need to change ourbehavior, because otherwise we
won't have the impact on societyor on our customers that we
want to have.
And so I, you know, often findthat it's building out and

(09:19):
deepening that picture ofsuccess, bringing in more
intrinsic measures, the meaningfor this, the human impact that
something's going to have, howwe're going to learn and grow
through what we're doing, howwe're going to contribute in
some, maybe small way to thecommunities we're involved with,
society, perhaps beyond that,maybe the next generation.
And so it's that sort oflengthening of time perspective

(09:42):
that I think is really important, so that we know why we're
doing something today and why weshouldn't cut corners, why
disrespecting somebody isactually going to have so many
consequences for us.
So I find sort of building abigger picture is really
important, and it doesn't matterwhere you are in the
organisation.
You then need to know how youconnect into that and thinking
about what I call the long wind,but this sort of bigger sense

(10:03):
of why we're here, that can be auseful curb on those difficult
behaviours.
Because I think one of the otherissues is in organisations.
If you've got somethinghappening you don't like, you
can sort of say don't do thatand you mandate that.
But actually a much morepowerful way is for that person
to understand how it doesn'tserve them and it doesn't serve
the community and actually it'sgoing to lead to lots of

(10:24):
negative consequences.
So how we manage bad behavior,I think is really important as
well, but we need to do it in away that will actually create
the change, rather than tellingsomebody off, shaming them,
humiliating them and thentelling them not to do something
often isn't very effective andthat's how we see sometimes
cultures that struggle to changeeven when they know they need

(10:45):
to.
What sort of things?
When you've been in a situationwhere there's like a toxic team
or a kind of organisation andleaders are thinking what do we
need to do, how, what sort ofpractical things do you help
them to kind of plan and workout?

(11:06):
Well, you know, the root causeoften is the behavior of an
individual or a group ofindividuals, and so often the
first conversation is with theHR department to talk about well
, what's the jeopardy?
You know kind of what.
You know what's the consequenceif you behave poorly?
If we truly want to change theculture, you know and I
mentioned just before we startedrecording, I read the Grenfell
report last night that there hasto be jeopardy, there has to be
accountability.
We still see it within the postoffice now.

(11:27):
There are still people on thepayroll that contributed to the
toxic culture, and so at thatpoint, you know, we can't go
kind of deal with our culturaltrauma in order to be able to
redefine, reset and createsomething for the future.
Too often one of the things thatI see either in my work or when
I'm doing my research is andyou alluded to it is there's

(11:50):
this sense from leaders that, oh, it's up to the next generation
to change it.
My point is always no, it's upto you to work with the next
generation to help them to undosome of the things that you've
implemented.
Not only do you learn aboutyourself, but you create this
fantastic evolution pathway forthe culture into the future.
We're not giving you know, kindof, we're not passing on to

(12:12):
them a deflated rugby ball forthem to catch.
You know it's actually pumpedup and it's ready to go.
So I think you know, when Iactually look at the strategies,
I make culture easy tounderstand, because most people
still put it in this too hard,too difficult basket.
You know, you and I, wheneverwe do speaking engagements,

(12:33):
whenever we do programs, youknow people are like this is
really great.
Finally, I've got thisunderstanding of what it means
to create great culture.
But then they need the actualtactics and the strategies to be
able to do something differentimmediately.
Otherwise it will always stayin that basket.
People will never, ever dealwith it.
They'll never pick up the batonand go okay, I'm mixing my
metaphors all over the place,but they'll never say right,

(12:53):
this is something that we canactually do something with.
What's the first thing thatwe're going to do?
What's second thing?
You know, over over the summerI worked with a team in a
pharmaceutical industry andtheir engagement score went up
10 in two months because of thework that they did.
And all of a sudden, you've gotthis real sense of optimism,
this real sense of positivityand the commentary in the in

(13:15):
their engagement survey was likewe've made a good start, now we
know what to do to keep itgoing, and so there's less of a
reliance on somebody to come inand help you re-energize, you
know and more of a realizationthat we now have the skills
ourselves to be able to doculture in the way you know kind
of that we want, such that weget maximum happiness out of our

(13:37):
job.
I always say you get theculture that you choose to build
, and when you teach people howto do it themselves, then
there's really no excuse forbuilding a great culture every
day.
What sort of things Can you giveus examples of in that
pharmaceutical company?
What sort of things theystarted doing or chose?
Give us some examples.
Yeah, so I teach people how tocommunicate with each other.

(13:59):
So there has to be thisrecognition that there are
different personalities workingin the workplace and therefore
there has to be different waysof communicating with each other
.
It's being able to recognizethis as empathy in action.
Right, we talk about empathy,but in practice it's me
recognizing Cath as a slightlydifferent personality than I do
and me adjusting mycommunication style, and that's

(14:19):
a skill in itself.
So I teach that.
We created a vision statement,short, sharp, five words, easy
to remember, something that theycan keep front of mind, and
every strategic decision has toline up with the vision.
So now they're askingthemselves the question if we
undertake this, how does itcontribute to the vision?
So all of a sudden it becomesvery, very easy prioritize work.

(14:41):
And it does become easy becausethey're like it doesn't line up
to the vision.
And then another thing that wedid is we created new cultural
norms.
We said we you know, I getteams to list here's the dumb
stuff that we do, here's thegood stuff that we do.
We don't want to throw the babyout with the bath water.
We don't, you know, we want tokeep all of the good stuff.
I say, okay, well, let'saddress all of the good stuff.
I say okay, well, let's addressall of these things that we
don't like.
And typically when you work withoffice-based teams emails,

(15:04):
meetings they're relativelystraightforward to change, but
you have to make an agreementthat actually our cultural norm
is to value and respect eachother's time.
Okay, well, what does that meanin practice?
And you get them to list fiveto 10 things and then
immediately they can go away andsay, all right, well, we're
going to have 20 minute meetings.
All right, we're going to stopcopying people into emails.

(15:24):
You know, one team reducedtheir email that I work with
reduced their email by 30% insix months just because they I
helped them create a newcultural norm.
So it's these kinds ofpractical things that not only
enhance the wellbeing and thesense of achievement that people
get, but they also then de-riskthe culture from ever becoming

(15:44):
toxic, because people know theactions they need to take to
maintain that sense of vibrancy.
Brilliant.
So that's really why we startedthe podcast as well, isn't it?
To help people think aboutculture, get more comfortable
with it, get some practicalideas, have a space, ask us some
questions and, yeah, to kind ofreally make sure it doesn't get

(16:06):
put in that too difficultbasket.
Now, another thing that you'vebeen working on for the last
year or so to help leaders havebetter ideas of how to approach
this and practical advice, andthat's all come out in your book
, which has literally come out afew days ago, and it's called
Detox your Culture, deliverResults, retain Staff and

(16:29):
Strengthen your Organization'sReputation.
And so, yeah, tell us a bitabout why you chose to spend all
that time and I know it takes alot of time to write a book.
Tell us a bit about why you'vewritten this now.
Well, I wrote Culture Fix in2019, Cath, which was kind of a
blueprint, to sort of say.

(16:50):
Here's the way you go aboutbuilding culture, and very much
inspired by the work of otherculture authors.
So, you know, people like ErinMayer wrote the Culture Map,
yourself wrote the Long Win,daniel Coyle wrote the Culture
Code, and what they provide isthis real context for why
building culture is important.
And yet, you know, I still readall of these stories.

(17:12):
One in four people dreads goingto work.
People with high levels ofstress are 22 times more likely
to think suicidal thoughts.
Employee turnover triggered bytoxic culture costs business $22
billion a year.
So what I wanted to do was takesome of those statistics and
almost create a risk managementplan for organizations to sort

(17:35):
of say toxic culture is notinevitable, it doesn't have to
happen.
I think sometimes, peoplethere's almost this expectation
that, oh, from time to timethat's going to happen and we'll
deal with it when it arises meand a real desire to continue to
educate leaders on not only whyculture building is important

(18:07):
so that's to add to the workthat's already out there but
also here are some very, verypractical things that you need
to be thinking about and thatyou need to be doing in order to
get to the point where theculture doesn't become toxic.
You know so someone said to meit's like oh, so I only buy this
when I've got a toxic culture.
I'm like, no, no, no, if youwaited until then it's probably

(18:29):
too late.
You buy it.
You know, when you're eventhinking about how do I keep my
culture great.
Well, one of the things you dois you get the book and you can
go down and go well, we're doingthat, great, we're doing that.
Oh, we're not doing that, we'renot thinking about that.
You know the other thing, theother reason, Cath, is that I
saw a spokesman and it was aspokesperson talk about a toxic
culture in New Zealand, aparticularly harrowing case and

(18:52):
I'm like how is it that leadersavoid accountability for toxic
culture by sending aspokesperson?
And it's things like that thatmade me angry.
I was like I really do have towrite the book here to make sure
that they understand that.
What's the response when thingsdo turn toxic?
But my hope is that people readit and get a sense of here's
the work that I need to do tomake sure this never happens in

(19:13):
my place of work.
So I've read it.
It's a great read, totallyrecommend it.
And it has what I love it's gotloads of case studies
throughout, loads of examples,and you realise, yeah, just how
prevalent this is and at thesame time, because of all the
practical strategies you offer,you also realise how necessary
it is.
I think that's our frustration,isn't it?

(19:34):
Again, if we are all aware ofthis, if we understand it's just
part of our role, you knowwe're always shaping culture and
if we choose not to, then we'restill affecting the culture,
just probably not in a positiveway.
And what are the things thatyou know when leaders are kind
of?
You know some of the feedbackyou've had.
What are the things that peopleare kind of you know talking to

(19:56):
you about the book?
What is it they're saying?
Oh, you know, this surprised me.
Or you know what sort offeedback have you had kind of
about it?
What are people kind of comingback to you with?
Principally, I would say thatit's brought clarity to areas of
culture that they didn'tnecessarily have.
So I write you know, there's achapter on purpose and there's a

(20:17):
chapter on values.
And I'm just about to startworking with a startup and the
founders had created a purposeand created a values.
And one of the guys whoapproached me having read the
book, he was just like I had noidea that that's how they were
used.
I'm like I'm just interested,like why did you create them?
He's like well, it's what youdo, isn't it?
And I still think there's thatsense of culture.

(20:39):
So I think, you know, on theone hand, people have been kind
of grateful for the knowledge,grateful for the clarity.
There was one potential clientor someone who's read the book
and he said, based on what Iread, he said I had no way of
understanding what kind ofculture that I had.

(21:00):
He was like you make it reallyclear, because I talk about the
fact there are five types ofcultures.
He's like you make it really,really clear.
He's like now I'm able to walkinto the office and say, right,
it's a pleasant culture.
Right, it feels combatant today.
Right, it feels vibrant.
And what I've been able to takefrom that is the strategies
that I need to employ in orderto shift the dial even a little

(21:21):
bit.
And the last bit of feedbackthat I got was around evolution
of culture, because one of thethings I'm at pain to talk about
and you and I talk about this,you know, you talk about it in
the long win is cultures don'tchange, they evolve, and what
you can't afford to do is justexpect them to evolve positively
.
You know, and I was talking tothis, he was on the board of

(21:42):
directors.
He said he said I said I hadn'tthought about that at all.
He's like I just assume thatwhen we hire the best people,
the culture will, you know, kindof evolve positively.
I was like no, it's not, it'snot the case.
You have to do specific work,not only on the culture but only
on yourself as well, to makesure that you're evolving with

(22:03):
the times.
You know, one of the things Italk about in the book is
different generations in theworkplace, and I'm not keen at
putting people into boxes, butyou can only have empathy for
another person if you understandthe generation in which they
were born, kind of the thingsthat they've been exposed to,
that you haven't such that weactually grow, evolve, build

(22:23):
together.
So that's some of the feedback.
I think, more than anythingelse, people have been really,
really grateful to have theclarity not only about these
specific elements of culturethat you and I talk about in the
podcast, but also actually whatthey can do about it to bring
about the change that they see.

(22:44):
Yeah, and it's interesting youmentioned the intergenerational
piece.
I think we should probably havea conversation a bit more depth
on that in one of our upcomingsessions that I'm seeing a lot
of research now coming outaround generation alpha and you
know, just just as when peoplehave maybe started thinking
about the millennials, on gen z,now there's a sort of oh wait
for it.
There's there's a wholedifferent context now for people
who have kind of grown up, born, uh, since 2000.

(23:08):
So I again always feel reallyuncomfortable stereotypes.
But you're right, there's acontext, there's a historical,
political, social context forpeople born in particular
generation.
You know people who'veexperienced whatever it is the
Ukraine war, who've grown upwith Brexit, who you know all of
these things that shift someexpectations, and I'm really
always interested in sort of thediffering views about work

(23:33):
norms and what somebody wantsfrom their career, because I
think that's the thing thatemployers are now a bit nervous
of and needing to think verycarefully about, because I think
it's going to look quitedifferent by the time, uh, well,
yeah, as they start enteringthe the workplace.
What are the key books thatinfluenced you in writing yours
around culture?
So we both like books.

(23:54):
You mentioned the Culture Codeby Daniel Coyle, so we'll put a
kind of link to that.
That's one that I like, one ofthe ones I go back to quite a
bit, and Erin Meyer's CultureMap.
Yeah, yeah, which I really likethe culture map, because what
that does it provides context tounderstand how social cultures

(24:15):
have an impact on workingcultures, Cath.
So I talk about that in thebook specifically to give people
a sense of, well, how isworking culture built?
Because, again, it's, you know,not that leaders should study
anthropology, but certainlyconsultants and speakers and
authors like us definitelyshould is, you know, really
provide that sense.

(24:35):
But also it's books likeMindset by Carol Dweck.
You know I'm a big fan of that.
We talked about it in our booksepisode.
Tony Hsieh wrote Happiness.
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote I can'tremember the exact name.
He used to work at Google andhe talked about you know kind of

(24:56):
how to bring emotionalintelligence into the workplace.
Amy Edmondson's books have beena constant source of inspiration
.
Amy Edmondson's, you know, aperfect example of someone who
has been talking aboutpsychological safety for
probably almost two decades.
You know, one of my mates saidto me he's like your life seems
exhausting.
He's like, do you never justthink of just giving it all up?

(25:17):
I was like, well, no, becauseyou know, I feel like I've got a
message that people need tohear and I want to keep adding
value in the hope that I just Iget to someone different kind of
every day.
And you know, you look atpeople like Amy Edmonton.
You look at people like BreneBrown on vulnerability.
You know Brene Brown wastalking about vulnerability for
15 years before people took herseriously.

(25:38):
So the words that they writeare an inspiration and the
people that they are are aninspiration, Cath.
And so you know, for me it'sfinding those books that can add
to my own thinking, challengemy own thinking.
You know, like I like Yuval,noah, harari's books, you know,
and Sapiens.

(26:00):
Yes, wow, yeah, very bookprovoking, yeah, and in that
bigger context of humanity, noteven just society, he's thinking
humanity, millennia, of humanprogress and what characterises
us.
Yeah, I love his writing.
Yeah, and all of those thingsyou know.
Again, if I can read that huge,thick book, you know I read Ray

(26:24):
Dalio Principles.
You know someone who has got anew own company, bridgewater
Associates, got a fabulousculture and he wrote this really
big, thick book.
But I see it as myresponsibility to read that,
make some notes, distill it downinto core themes Don't let AI
do it, it's my own learning aswell and then present it back in

(26:45):
a way that makes sense topeople so that they can better
understand human dynamics.
You know and I've talked on thepodcast in the past I'm a
relatively basic and invertedcommas.
You know I like to use languagethat I feel is easy to
understand at the first time ofreading so that people can
really get a sense of what'simmediately possible.

(27:08):
And yeah, so those are some ofthe books that have inspired me.
Great.
So we always like to offer somepractical tips.
So I think you withdraw largelyon your book, but give us
perhaps what that first stepmight be, a sort of action If
you want to think about detoxingyour culture.
I mean, one action is buyingyour book, obviously, and then

(27:32):
you know what would yourecommend people to do as the
first step?
Well, for me, catherine Imentioned this at the start is
develop an interest in humandynamics, and you don't have to
go on a course and you don'thave to read loads and loads of
stuff you know, but recognisethat you know.
Loads and loads of stuff, youknow, but recognise that you

(27:53):
know.
The thing to do is, if you maketime to build a relationship
with another human being, thenthe capacity for empathy grows,
and empathy is the glue thatreally binds great cultures
together.
So do actually makerelationship building a priority
.
Yeah, I absolutely love that.
I think, you know, we've got toreally switch away from tasks

(28:13):
as a priority and thinking aboutthe relationships through which
we might deliver some tasks,but to really focus on how have
I done this week, have I donetoday?
And you know, deepening,strengthening, broadening
relationships.
So absolutely, it's a greataction.
And so what we want people todo is to then get curious about
what sort of culture you have.
So you might want to look atthe five types of culture that

(28:36):
Colin talks about in his bookand has been writing about.
But take a step back, be a flyon the wall.
Think about someone coming forthe first time.
What would they notice abouthow things get done?
So get curious about the typeof culture you have and then
uncover we want people really tosort of uncover what might be
those toxic elements that lurkwithin the culture.

(28:59):
Yeah, because I think they'reoften not as visible as people
think that they are.
And it can just be somebodymade a complaint about something
, or someone shared with afriend that they didn't feel
safe to raise something.
They can be incredibly minor,but they still warrant
investigation.
And I don't mean a formalinvestigation, I don't mean

(29:19):
bringing a load of auditors in,but it's worth just asking the
question because, left unchecked, then these things will just
grow and grow and get worse andbefore you know it, your culture
will be in the media and you'llbe asking yourself the question
well, how did we get here?
And it's because you didn'tactually take the time to
uncover what was behind the waythat an individual felt.

(29:40):
Yeah, it is often these thingsthey seem small, but in human
terms, so if we put a differentmeasure on it, they're really
significant.
They really impact someone'sexperience in the workplace.
So, yeah, actions around reallyfocusing on relationship
building, getting curious aboutthe sort of culture you're in.
Are you aware of that, are younoticing it?
And then, yeah, uncover some ofthose behaviours that are maybe

(30:01):
planting some seeds of whatcould become toxic if we don't
notice and adjust them.
So, great conversation.
Congratulations on your bookpublication, thank you, and do
send in any questions thatyou've got around.
Culture We'll be.
Yeah, we've got no shortage oftopics to dive into and looking
forward to the next conversation.

(30:22):
Thanks, Cath.

Cath (30:23):
Thanks for listening to today's Inside Out Culture
Podcast.

Colin (30:28):
Please remember to like, subscribe and, of course, share
with others who you think may beinterested.