The research
I’m not a researcher by training either. I’m someone who likes taking big, complex ideas and making them usable. So in 2021 I engaged McCrindle to run a national study of people leaders, because I wanted to know what they actually believe about culture rather than what culture experts believe about them. Every number on this site comes from it.
The study set out to understand four things: what people leaders think culture is, what they believe their role in it to be, what they think builds it and what erodes it, and how equipped they feel to do anything about it.
believe culture plays an integral role in an organisation’s success.
say creating a healthy culture in their team is the most, or one of the most, important parts of their role.
agree culture is the outcome of lots of little decisions made over time.
feel completely confident building great culture. The other 97% named at least one thing they’d need.
Asked where culture has a massive or substantial impact on organisational success, people leaders said nearly everywhere.
Also named: inclusion and diversity, achievement of organisational goals, creativity and innovation, and physical safety.
Asked for the most important ingredients of a healthy culture, five things came out on top. None of them is a perk.
89%believe they should invest more time in shaping their team’s culture than they currently do.
79% believe they can influence their team’s culture. Only 25% believe they can influence their organisation’s.
51% want practical advice for how to shape culture within a team. Which is more or less why this site exists.
The full Organisational Culture Report is the collated data from the study, and Let’s Talk Culture is the book I wrote from it. The report is available on its own, or with a signed copy of the book.
About McCrindle
McCrindle is an Australian research-based advisory firm that takes the pulse of the nation: researching communities, surveying society, analysing the trends and communicating the findings. They ran the study independently. I asked the questions; they did the asking.