Culture by Design: How to Build a High-Performing Culture, Even in the New Remote Work Environment
by David J. Friedman
No single factor – not sales, marketing, finance, strategy, or operations – has more influence over the ultimate success of an organization than its culture. And yet, understanding exactly what culture is, and more importantly, what to do about it, has always been so murky. In the game-changing first edition of Culture by Design, David Friedman cut through the fog and provided a simple, clear, and practical roadmap that thousands of organizations have now used to build high-performing cultures. In this new, updated edition, you’ll learn how to take the strategies he originally taught and adapt them to meet the unique challenges presented by today’s remote work environment.
Having led more than 500 culture workshops for CEOs and senior leaders since 2013, CultureWise Founder and author David Friedman has observed a fascinating evolution in the questions and concerns raised at these events.
When he first started addressing these groups, many participants had a vague concept of what culture was. He spent a fair amount of time making a case for why culture is so important and how much it can influence an organization.
What Friedman noticed in later years is that culture has emerged at the top of most executives’ list of priorities. It’s no longer considered a “soft” topic—the business world has been indoctrinated in the value of company culture.
But just as many leaders were learning to embrace and actively seek ways to improve their culture, a new challenge to achieving that goal was triggered by the pandemic. Beginning in 2020, the questions Friedman heard most often were:
· How do we manage and protect our culture when our people are mostly working remotely?
· How do we select the right people to fit our culture when we may never meet them in person?
· How do we onboard them effectively, and how will they pick up that “feeling” of our culture?
· How do we keep people engaged in our culture when they’re rarely together?
Friedman published Culture by Design in 2018 to: “provide leaders with a clear blueprint for how to systematically and intentionally create, drive, and embed a high-performing culture throughout an organization.”
The content in the first edition still resonates, but Friedman wanted to address the new layer of complexity in corporate culture brought on by the tsunami of pandemic-related changes. The updated second edition of this influential book also tackles questions about maintaining a strong culture with a remote or hybrid workforce.
Friedman developed his approach to building a high-performing culture as the CEO of several companies over the past several decades. Drawing on experience within his own organizations, he created a simple, eight-step framework based on reinforcing the behaviors that generate individual and organizational success.
Friedman’s system for improving company culture is laid out in detail in Culture by Design. The book functions as a “how-to manual” to intentionally build and continuously enhance culture.
In easy-to-follow terms, Friedman explains the process to define, ritualize, and communicate preferred behaviors and the best methods to have staff practice them until they become second nature. The book includes clear examples and tips, templates for specific messaging tools, and links to videos that create an even more dynamic learning experience. A free, two-chapter download of this book is available.
For leaders interested in taking their culture initiative to the next level, the book also explains the CultureWise® program that was inspired by the eight-step framework.
Take-Away
Culture by Design may be the most practical resource about revitalizing organizational culture on the market. Friedman demystifies and simplifies the process, and the step-by-step instructions outlined in the book make the method accessible and achievable for organizations of any size.
