In a world full of pizza parties and “we are a family”-style workplaces, organizational leaders grasp for ways to keep their teams satisfied. CULTURAL EXCELLENCE: A Leader's Guide to Strengthening the Heart of Your Organization does not promise to magically fix gloomy office culture, but it does offer a blueprint to brighter possibilities. It treats every member of a team with respect, and calls on leadership to dig into what makes their workplace most productive.
Author Michele Herlein combines powerful anecdotes from C-suites with hard data to spur an important conversation that starts with the hard truth: nobody wants to work a job that's miserable, and miserable workplaces hurt people alongside the bottom line. The opening pages by themselves hammer that home, addressing first and foremost the real-life impact of unpleasant office environments. This centers Herlein as someone interested in not only helping leaders but helping everyone: “Businesses are, at their core, social systems,” she writes before acknowledging that managing the well-being of a social system can be challenging.
Knowing that running a productive, fulfilling social system is not a skill innately known, CULTURAL EXCELLENCE proceeds to offer a graceful and intentional workshop on cultural development. Each chapter concludes with “Time to exercise" prompts to allow a leader some reflective space to access what their organization needs.
These open-ended questions—from “how do you define organization culture?” and “who is responsible for culture in your organization?” to "what changes or uncertainties are you facing?” and “how can we ensure our culture remains a driver of success?”—allow readers to make the observations and adjustments needed for their scale of workforce, increasing the scope of this book’s impact.
Future leaders can also use the book to formulate their own opinions on the spaces they seek to influence. Herlein warns leaders not to leave employees in the dark during uncertain times. Meanwhile, lower-level staff should appreciate the converse warning: a lack of transparency from leadership is a red flag, and they should expect to either see development and growth opportunities or find a better culture to participate in.
Intentionally structured and effectively curated with the tools to make swift change and sustain a positive impact, CULTURAL EXCELLENCE stands above many other conversations about workplace culture.
Leaders will greatly appreciate Michele Herlein's CULTURAL EXCELLENCE: A Leader's Guide to Strengthening the Heart of Your Organization for its wealth of knowledge and actionable steps to improve culture at any level.
—Melodie Coulter for IndieReader