Want to develop an appropriate corporate culture? Why not try singing the blues?

[Ian Buckingham]

Just between you and me, I really like Joss Stone. She has a voice and a style which seems to have been grafted onto her 20+ physique like a luscious young vine spliced with ancient root-stock. I’m also willing to confess that I sometimes find myself singing along to Jamie Cullum and Katie Melua, both exceptionally talented artists in their own right.

But just after I’ve surreptitiously downloaded an album or two, I’ll inevitably turn on the radio and have a chance reunion with Billie Holiday or Sarah Vaughan and instantly regain a sense of perspective about Ms Stone and co’s sixth form soul.

Now I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man (the benchmark age is 34 I was shocked to hear). I’m certainly not an elitist culture vulture (I used to pinch my sister’s Duran Duran records for goodness sake). But for me, you really do have to have lived a little before you can authentically transmit the ebb and flow of love and life and all the other intricacies of relationships. It’s tricky to get too excited about Joss singing about her trials and tribulations and how “you” were “holding (her) hand” when you’ve heard Ella’s version of My Funny Valentine.

This may seem like a bizarre segway but my contentious pop vs soul/blues thesis does have some resonance (honest!) when reflecting on the importance of culture development as a driver of organisation change or organisation development. Why? Because it frankly takes a mature attitude (true soul if you like), among the leadership team to appreciate the importance and therefore the value of culture development rather than simply paying lip service to popular culture by reframing well worn clichés.

In my experience leaders who’ve experienced the power of culture change won’t be the ones issuing popular sound-bites, or schmaltzy metaphors. They most definitely won’t be promoting internal marketing to sweep up after, post rationalise or even justify change. These change veterans are the ones who will be kicking off the change process by developing a clear picture of the culture required to deliver the goals they’re sponsoring. They will also be passionate about engaging employees with the goals, the desired culture and the true change process. Furthermore they will be role modelling it not just talking about it. Why? Because they know that effective culture development is critical to achieving the bottom line benefits of their change process, it isn’t a reactive tool to be used to post rationalise the new world experienced by change survivors.

But what is culture? Those self-appointed cultural arbiters at the BBC are currently running an irritating trailer for an arts programme (might be the Culture Show) in which Q-list celebs and plastic icons are asked to define “culture”. This rag-tag ensemble of glitterati offers a variety of answers ranging from the self-deprecating “what we always imagine others have but know that we don’t” through to the contemporary “it’s the ultimate evolution of social networking”. One uber-trendy forces us all the way down the waste pipe of taste with this downright bizarre offering “culture is the distance we consciously place between ourselves and our excrement”. I imagine FD’s worldwide will tend to agree.

Much has been made of culture in the HR management tomes. It’s a term which has shifted in emphasis from a simple descriptor to a form of evaluation. But it’s essentially a neutral word – we’re all cultured since culture, after all, is simply “the way we all do things here”. Ella does things rather differently to Joss and that suits the market but who will our grandchildren be listening to in their 40s?

Culture, for me, represents the norms, mores, written and unwritten rules that shape our interactions, whether in the everyday or workaday worlds. It’s not something elitist or rarefied. It’s not exclusive but is simply the sum of all our parts, our interactions. So why is it important to business?

We’re tired of hearing the cliché that “people are our most important asset”. Well, we’re tired of it being uttered by internal marketers who we know just don’t mean it. What most of us working within the HR community know is that employees are usually the organisation’s greatest cost but without them we have no product and no customer interface, and no brand. As I’ve hopefully proven in my book Brand Engagement (Palgrave/Macmillan 2007), brands are 80% behavioural. Our people, therefore, are our brand and our brand drives value.

But as most of the world attempts to recover from economic crises, I wonder how many re-forming board members will reflect on lessons learned, will start investing in soft skills development and/or will be considering cultural reform and reflecting on the importance of values to their brand management drive? Or is it time for us all to start singing the blues?