many senior leaders recognize the importance of culture and want to create the foundations for success. That said, ‘meaning’ only becomes ‘performance’ through practical application and that’s where many organizations are found wanting. Does the purpose describe how the organization wishes to be seen? Is the vision achievable, easy to remember and does the strategy outline how you’ll get there? And, have the values been created by employees and do they objectively summarise the kind of behaviors that they want to see (aligned to the purpose and vision)? As I’ve mentioned, all too often, these exercises are undertaken to ‘tick boxes’ or as marketing exercises rather than being seen as meaningful pillars of culture. To avoid confusing employees, leaders and HR departments need to ensure that these pillars are defined, but not go into the detail of how they are actually applied. An overly prescriptive culture leaves managers with no work to do and can lead to confusion, disengagement, toxicity and therefore, an erosion of the belonging that they’re looking to create. When told what the culture is, managers will simply wait for others to take action rather than taking accountability for defining what it means for their own team to live these pillars day-to-day. Ownership and definition of culture require that managers are provided with the skills to turn good intentions into good action. In a webinar that I ran in 2023, over half of the attendees said that this was an area that required further development, which goes some way toward explaining why organizations feel they have to produce thousands of words to describe something that they expect managers to uphold. By shifting the focus to providing managers with the skills to define how purpose, vision and values will be lived within their own teams, not only will they create cultural ownership across the organization, they will also remove the risk of silos (i.e. where teams can’t work well with each other) and thus create the conditions for success. Anything else could lead to culture confusion or worse, toxicity, which will always be a barrier to belonging and, ultimately, performance. And that’s a very bad thing. Another trap that some companies fall into that can lead to a toxic culture is thinking that they can simply come up with some flashy slogans, a new name, some new fonts, a modern logo or write effusively on their website about ‘diversity and inclusion efforts’ or the like in the hope that people don’t scratch below the surface and discover that the culture doesn’t match the brand image they wish to portray. This issue was best illustrated by the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia. In October 2022, it released a statement, out of the blue, saying that it wanted to be referred to as The Bureau as it was, seemingly, sick of being called the ‘BoM’ [pronounced like bomb]. But even The Bureau – who are Australia’s national weather, climate and water agency – could not have forecasted what happened next. Two days later, enraged by the perceived window dressing taking place, employees and unions contacted government ministers ‘alleging bullying, widespread underpayment of overtime for staff, unsafe working hours and a lack of fatigue management’. It further transpired that one employee twice underwent treatment for psychiatric care, while another suffered a heart attack due to excessive overtime work. Additionally, at least five other employees took stress leave, experiencing panic attacks and anxiety. All of which came to light as a result of a rebranding exercise. Energy drink company Red Bull is an example of an organization that does both really well and showcases how the two are linked. It has a really strong brand, whose slogan is to ‘Give Wiiings to People and Ideas’. If you attend a Red Bull event, you’ll see the brand at the heart of everything that they do. They stand for creativity, innovation, confidence and individualism. There’s also a really vibrant culture behind the brand, built on strong values. Not only do staff practice the values in plain sight, but they also embody the brand too. The values at Red Bull were instilled by its founder, the late Dietrich Matezchitz. When asked about the intersection between the brand and its commitment to culture back in 2012, he said, ‘the brand is supporting the culture community, as well as the other way round’. Their market dominance and awareness of their brand are a testament to the culture they have built. In order to develop a powerful brand you need to build a culture of people who believe in it, then provide them with the freedom to build and evolve it. What you can’t do – otherwise you’ll be in the news almost daily – is to paint an unrealistic picture of your culture to the outside world in the hope that nobody looks behind the curtain.