Ep 48: AI-Enabled Culture Strategy

Guest Bio:

Charlie Coode is the founder of Culture15, a SaaS platform that helps organisations measure and manage culture as a driver of performance. With a background in the military, executive leadership at GE, and over a decade in culture consulting, Charlie brings deep expertise in aligning culture with strategy. Since launching Culture15, he’s helped 55+ companies embed culture into business success. A thought leader and London Business School guest lecturer, Charlie champions culture as a business priority, not just a HR priority.

Follow Charlie Coode on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliecoode‍

Cultivating Culture: From Values to Behaviors

Charlie Coode illuminated a critical evolution in how we understand and influence company culture. There is a compelling case for treating culture not as an ethereal concept but as a tangible driver of business success. Charlie’s insights, drawn from a robust background at GE and years of culture consulting, underscore the necessity of moving beyond aspirational values to the concrete reality of daily behaviors within an organization. Culture, he argues, is the often-overlooked bridge connecting strategic intent with actual results.

Clarity and precision are necessary in defining and assessing culture. Many organizations operate with a fuzzy understanding of their desired culture and an equally vague grasp of their current cultural landscape. This lack of definition leads to inconsistencies and reliance on superficial engagement tactics. Applying the rigorous data-driven approach prevalent in operational and financial management at companies like GE, is very useful for measuring and managing a company’s culture. Company culture metrics are excellent indicators of organizational health and offer a proactive lens on future performance.

Coode's framework for achieving this clarity involves breaking down broad cultural ideals into specific, observable behaviors. Culture 15's methodology hinges on a two-tiered system that allows organizations to customize overarching cultural themes while grounding them in concrete actions. This approach moves away from the abstract nature of values like "respect" or "integrity" towards a focus on how work actually gets done. By presenting behaviors along non-judgmental axes, the platform encourages organizations to make deliberate choices about the cultural attributes that will best support their strategic objectives, acknowledging that a one-size-fits-all approach to culture is ineffective.

The integration of advanced technology, particularly LLMs (large language models), marks a significant leap forward in Culture 15's approach. Their AI engine, ‘Rosetta’, tackles the challenge of capturing the nuances of organizational culture by analyzing natural language responses from employees. This method bypasses the limitations of standardized surveys, allowing for richer, more authentic insights into how people experience the culture. Rosetta then transforms this qualitative data into quantitative scores, providing managers with actionable metrics. Furthermore, the introduction of ‘Rose’, an AI-powered assistant, empowers managers with real-time interpretation and guidance.

For leaders seeking to cultivate a thriving organizational culture, Coode gave a great place to start: define, diagnose, and track. This involves first establishing a clear understanding of the cultural attributes required to execute the company's strategy. Next, organizations need to accurately assess their current cultural state. Finally, and crucially, culture must be continuously tracked and integrated into the ongoing management processes. This approach grounds culture in intentional behaviors that drive tangible business outcomes.

Additional Resources:

culture15.com‍