1.
Live culture: the key to
employee engagement,
innovation, and success
Dr Tim Rayner,
December 2018

2.
Do you dream of building a better
organization?
• Where core values run through every
aspect of the organization, from strategy
to leadership to HR?
• Where people feel energized and
inspired by work, and seek to solve
challenges and own the results?
• Where innovation emerges organically
from customer and stakeholder
engagement?
• Where human beings are not just
numbers on a balance sheet but the
driving force of your success?

3.
Culture
One factor links:
• employee satisfaction
• customer satisfaction
• innovation performance
• sustained financial success

4.
What’s the ROI on culture?

5.
Employee
satisfaction matters
Between 2009 and 2014, the top tier of Fortune’s “Best
Companies to Work For” outperformed the S&P 500 by
84.2 percent, while a similar portfolio of Glassdoor’s “Best
Places to Work” outperformed the overall market by 115.6.
percent.

6.
CUSTOMER CENTRICITY
Westpac: The Agile Edge 24
Customer
satisfaction
is everything!
It implies employee
engagement, care and
empathy, driven by
purpose. Qualities
associated with culture.

7.
Some of the world’s most
successful companies pride
themselves on their cultures.
7
Notably tech companies like
Google, Facebook, and Atlassian.

8.
28/10/2018 | 8
Prior to the
digital era,
companies
invested in
culture to attract
talent and boost
employee
engagement and
productivity.
Today, tech
companies need
culture to survive.

9.
The 4th Industrial Revolution has begun.
Technology is dissolving the barriers between
digital and physical reality. Accelerating
technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI),
biotech, robotics, solar energy, 3D printing,
digital currencies, and virtual and augmented
reality present incredible opportunities for
organisations that can harness their potential.
But few companies are match fit for the future.
The future belongs to companies that can align their
business strategies with a 21st century innovation culture.
Technological change calls
for new entrepreneurial
skills and mindsets

10.
Competition is becoming
smaller, faster, leaner
With local startup hub support, free software and open source tools,
entrepreneurs can launch new businesses with minimal financial outlay.
These entrepreneurs draw from the hacker culture playbook:
o Agile prototyping
o Lean validation
o Focus on customer experience
o Growth hacks
o Business model innovation
o Outsourced capabilities
o Data-driven experiments
For startup entrepreneurs, innovation
culture is a way of life. Can you compete?

11.
Millennials raised on social channels aren’t interested in working for
boring, old-fashioned, command and control-style organisations.
Social media creates new expectations. On the social web:
o No one can kill a good idea
o Everyone can pitch in
o Anyone can lead
o No one can dictate
o You can easily build on top of what others have done
o Excellence usually wins (and mediocrity doesn't)
o Great contributions get recognized and celebrated
The digital generation
demands agile engagement
For the digital generation, agile is more than a
buzzword, it’s a cultural norm. Can you deliver?

12.
Erm, what is
culture?
Meanwhile,
many
business
leaders are
thinking…

13.
Culture is the human element of
a company. It grows through
human interactions. It is shaped
by shared values and purpose.
Culture coheres
in a shared
perception of
‘how we get
things done
around here’.
This can be
motivating and
inspiring – or a
dispiriting drain
on performance.

14.
How do things get done in your organisation? Is
there a clear alignment between your core values
and the key elements of your business? Do you
lead with value and purpose, strengthening
‘culture’ with each decision? Do you hire for
values and use your onboarding process to
educate new hires in your company culture?
14

15.
On one view, culture is the sum of all interactions in a
company. Every company has its own culture,
determined by ‘how we get things done around here’.
But not all cultures are created equal. There is a major
difference between ‘live’ and ‘inert’ cultures. The former
is something to aspire to; the latter, something to avoid.
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16.
Live cultures emerge
around values and
practices that motivate
and inspire employees.
Activated employees
become ‘agents’ for
culture, transmitting the
vibe horizontally
through the company.

17.
Live cultures are known for the energy they transmit from
person to person - a surge of inspiration; a new insight; a
revitalised sense of ‘how we get things done around here’.

18.
The values and practices of inert cultures, by
contrast, fail to motivate or inspire employees.
They lead to stagnation and often failure over time.

19.
Is your culture live – or inert?
What kind of culture do you want to create?

20.
Live cultures are built
on values and integrity

21.
Source: ASB Everyday Banking strategy research proposal
Values and
purpose are your
orientation in the
world. They help
you ‘make sense’
to customers and
employees.

22.
This implies a holistic
approach to leadership.
22
Live organisations
build thriving cultures
by aligning their
values, strategy,
systems and practices.

23.
Leaders must
learn to ‘see the
system’ and
promote values-
alignment across
the organisation.
28/10/2018 | 23

24.
Leaders must be
storytellers,
articulating a vision of
transformative purpose
to engage and enlist
employees in
organisational change.
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25.
Crucially, employees
appreciate the values
and vision that
animate the culture.
Few things are more inspiring than clear
alignment between values, strategy, and
culture. It reflects organisational integrity.

26.
A live culture is the ultimate
foundation for agile
experiments and learning.
It’s easier to ask
for forgiveness
than permission!

27.
Live cultures are learning cultures.
Innovation is viewed as a key element of
‘how we get things done around here’.

28.
Workshopping
values and integrity

29.
I am developing a series of
workshops to help leaders think
through the alignment of different
elements of their organisations.
29

30.
These are participatory
workshops aimed to develop new
organisational processes to
promote culture and innovation.
30

31.
Background: Merrier innovation culture
The content for these workshops was developed to build and scale innovation culture at The Merrier, an
influencer marketing startup in Byron Bay, Australia.
• The founders wanted to build a collaborative, values-based organisation that would mirror internally the
collaborative, purpose-driven marketplace activities enabled by the company.
• I was hired as Director of Education and Culture in March 2018. Building and scaling innovation culture
was one of my core responsibilities.
• Between March and November 2018, I completed several key initiatives to build Merrier culture:
1. Onboarding rituals (Freak & Greet and Values Prop)
2. Weekly team rituals (Celebration, Pay it forward Fridays, and Gifter)
3. Competitions and Awards (Awesome Experiment Award)
4. A Values Health Check (run quarterly)
5. A Culture Book, detailing the core elements of Merrier culture, for public consumption.
• The holistic approach I take in the following slides reflects my belief that culture is not something ‘extra’
that is layered on top of a company, but the vital tissue that joins and sustains all elements of a
company. Culture is in every employee, and shaped by every element of a company; hence, all
elements must be taken into account when reflecting on how to implement and build a company culture.
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32.
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Strategy
Rituals
Values
People
Leadership
Systems
Structure
The workshops
use the Culture
Wheel framework
A tool (adapted from
McKinsey’s 7S framework)
to help companies align
their business system with
their values and vision.

33.
33
Strategy
Rituals
Values
People
Leadership
Systems
Structure
How to use the
Culture Wheel
1. Review core values.
2. Sync strategy and values
3. Teach leaders how to
leverage strategy and values
for employee engagement
4. Sync other elements of the
wheel with strategy and
values, starting on LHS or
RHS, depending on
organisational requirements.
Ethos Execution

34.
There is no one way to build a
business organisation. But
companies that want to
develop 21st century
innovation capacities need to
invest in values-led leadership
and agile team management.
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35.
Workshop content: Values and visioning
35
What values animate
your organisation?
What kinds of
coaching and
storytelling practices
do you need to
inspire employees
with these values?

36.
Workshop content: Tribal leadership
36
Tribal leadership is a live
culture-based coaching regime
for high-performing teams.
Employees learn to celebrate
the creative potential of working
on cross-functional teams driven
by shared values and purpose.

37.
Workshop content: Agile innovation systems
37
METRICS AND INCENTIVES
1. ‘CoPIs’ (performance metrics linked to collaboration)
2. ‘InnoPIs’ (performance metrics linked to innovation)
3. Team bonuses linked to ‘failing fast’ and innovation.
ENTREPRENEURIAL MANAGEMENT
1. Risky assumption tests (RATs)
2. Islands of freedom (dedicated innovation sprints for
triadic teams that successfully complete RATs)
3. Metered funding linked to ‘learning metrics’

38.
Values
Strategy
Leadership
People
Rituals
Systems
Structure
Express culture
Aligned with culture
Tribal pride
T-shaped, in triads
Culture hacks
Entrepreneurial + KPIs
Dual operating system
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“Process drives
culture, not the
other way around,
so you can't just
change the culture,
you have to
change the
system.” Eric Ries

39.
Like to schedule a talk or workshop?
Call me!
Dr Tim Rayner
trcr01@gmail.com
+61 425 217 030