“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” Peter Drucker
Culture is a subject of deep fascination for me. Whenever people come together, a culture inevitably forms, composed of norms, often unwritten, that shape how individuals behave and interact.
There is an old anthropological saying: fish would be the last creatures to discover water, despite it being the most ubiquitous and influential part of their existence. In the same way, culture surrounds and shapes everyone in an organisation. It influences behaviour, relationships, and decision-making. Most people, like fish, don’t recognise culture because it just is. It is normalised.
An analogy I like to use when thinking about culture is a major league football game. A packed stadium of fans wanting to see their team win. When a goal is scored fans leap to their feet screaming and celebrating, while the opposing team’s fans might be booing, or crying foul at the referee. People don’t normally jump to their feet and yell and scream, but in a crowd of others who are all leaping out of their seats, a person could easily be mistaken for a wowser if they don’t participate in the celebrations. The context and culture of a football game shapes the behaviour of those in the stadium. It is normal to behave that way in that setting.
People have an innate need to belong. For those who are uncertain about their identity or values, the culture of a workplace can shape, or even alter, their behaviour. Anyone who has worked in a toxic environment knows what this looks like. Even good people may behave poorly just to fit in or avoid being excluded from the “tribe”. Worse still, refusing to conform to toxic norms could lead to losing one’s job—there is risk in not adhering to the unwritten norms.
Daniel Goleman’s (2000) research found that leaders are the primary creators of organisational culture. In fact, the way a leader behaves has a 70% influence on how people in their organisation behave. For a school, this means it is the principal that shapes the culture. Teachers are expected to follow the dictates of the principal. That shaped behaviour then influences how teachers view and treat the students and their parents.
However, schools are complex places with histories. Principals come and go. Some principals have the presence and the power to shape culture, others allow themselves to be shaped by the prevailing norms. Those in the latter category I would suggest are not leaders, but followers.
My 25-year career as a principal began as founding head of a school. It was an immense opportunity and privilege to establish the culture of that school. With nothing in existence, the culture was easily created and reflected my beliefs about education and how people should behave and work.
Then, in the middle of 2008 I moved to St Paul’s School in Brisbane. As a growing leader I wanted the challenge of reshaping an existing culture, motivated by the desire to leave the place better than what I found it. That was hard. Very hard. There were so many cultural norms ingrained at the school, created by the leadership styles of my predecessors and the tragic history of the place (child sexual abuse), that if I wasn’t careful, or strong enough, they would change me. “The standard you walk past is the standard you set”—I knew I only had six or so months to identify the cultural norms I could live with and the ones I needed to challenge and change. I knew that if I left it longer than six months I would subconsciously fall into line with the tacit expectations and assumptions the school had of its principal and I would allow the same story to continue. I didn’t want that to ever happen. There were lots of risks, but I was determined. In the end, it took a good 12 years to shift the culture, and by using strategies beyond just my daily behaviour.
The culture of an organisation can have a huge effect on people and their work. I have researched and written extensively about the effects of trust (which is an unwritten cultural norm). Paul Zak’s research found that workplaces with high levels of trust experience a 50% increase in productivity, fewer staff sick days, less burnout, less staff turnover and better wellbeing. Similarly, Bryk and Schneider’s findings (2002), published in Trust in Schools, showed that trust significantly improved student outcomes. The culture of a school can be a positive influence on learning, or it can seriously inhibit the functioning of the school.
Hanson and Childs (1998) describe a school with a positive culture as a “place where students and teachers like to be”. Peterson and Deal (1998) describe a school with a positive culture as a place where:
- “staff have a shared sense of purpose, where they pour their hearts into teaching;
- the underlying norms are of collegiality, improvement, and hard work;
- rituals and traditions celebrate student accomplishment, teacher innovation, and parental commitment;
- the informal network of storytellers, heroes, and heroines provides a social web of information, support and history; and
- success, joy, and humour abound” (p.29).
Places with great cultures are great places to work. Great cultures shape those involved into better versions of themselves.
On the other hand, schools with a toxic or negative culture are places where teachers are unwilling to change and where the tone is oppositional and acerbic. They are places where negativity dominates conversations, interactions, and planning; where the only stories recounted are of failure (Peterson & Deal, 1998). The shared ethos about reform among teachers in these schools is “this too shall pass” and, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” To these teachers, the way it has always been done is the right way. Whether positive or toxic, the introduction of change will serve to bring to the surface, the dominate features of the school’s culture (Hinde, 2005).
So, what does this all mean, apart from being a fascination?
For school principals, it means a lot. When you realise how much of an impact culture has on people you start to understand that the best way of optimising the conditions for learning is to shape a positive culture. How you lead has a huge effect on that culture. A new principal has several choices. They can allow the prevailing culture of the school they walk into to change them and let the existing norms perpetuate. They can choose to make the culture worse by using fear as a means of control. Or they can choose to make a stand against the practices that aren’t ok and build a culture of trust. The choice the principal makes has a significant impact on so many people and the learning outcomes of the students for years into the future.
References
Browning, P. (2002). Principled: 10 leadership practices for building trust. Brisbane: UQP.
Bryk, Schneider, (2002) Trust in schools. New York: Russell Sage
Goleman, D. (2000, March-April). Leadership that gets results. Harvard Business School, Reprint R00204
Hansen, J. M. & Childs, J. (1998). Creating a school where people like to be. Educational Leadership 56 (1), pp. 14-17.
Peterson, K. & Deal, T. (1998). How leaders influence the culture of schools. Educational Leadership 56 (1), pp.28-30.
Zak, P. (2017). The neuroscience of trust. Harvard Business Review. January—February 2027.
