Who owns culture?

Someone? Anyone? Bueller? (sorry, couldn't resist)

Every organization or group – big, small, private, public, nonprofit, community, and yes, even families – has a culture.

I’ve sometimes described it as the personality of the organization.

It’s about what we do – and don’t do – around here. What we can – and can’t – say here. Who is – and isn’t – welcome. What we say we value, and how we express – or don’t – those values.

The question “who owns culture?” is an important one.

In all too many organizations, culture “just happens.” Culture becomes an afterthought, if it’s consciously thought about at all.

Or it’s viewed as a project, with a start, middle, and end – you know, a “culture change initiative.”

And either way, that ultimately leads to a slow slide downhill.

I recently ran a poll on LinkedIn, asking this question of who owns culture. LinkedIn allows up to four options in their polls, and I chose “The CEO”, “HR”, “The employees”, and “Other.”

Votes were split between the CEO (32%) and the Employees (41%), with Other coming in third and HR getting only 3% of the votes (which I found fascinating).

The conversations in the comments were even more fascinating. Discussions ranged around whether “accountability” is the same as “ownership,” and a strong recognition that, in the end, everyone in an organization has an impact.

But should “everyone” own culture?

That doesn’t work. If everyone’s responsible, no one is responsible. And then culture becomes a hodgepodge of different managers’ approaches with their teams and different leaders’ approaches with their departments or divisions within – let’s face it – their silos.

Okay, then, if it’s not “everyone,” who is it?

The only non-collective owner cited by anyone was the CEO. Now, I kinda primed the pump on that by having the CEO as one of the poll options, but there were thoughtful comments indicating that this wasn’t just a knee-jerk response.

One person suggested the CEO and the Board.

I don’t think the CEO has the necessary bandwidth or the necessary insight into what’s actually happening. And the Board certainly doesn’t.

You wouldn’t ask the CEO to be the owner of sales, marketing, R&D, HR, and so on. Each of those areas has their own leader – a leader who ultimately answers to the CEO, but has expertise in and responsibility for their specific area. Not incidentally, they also have a team to support the work.

Is culture important enough?

When we give a single person responsibility – ownership – over a functional area, we declare to employees, customers, and the general outside audience that this area is important.

Is culture important enough to have its own responsible person? Its own leader?

A lot of organizations say culture matters. But almost no organization has an actual owner, responsible for how culture is created and maintained.