Three Ways to Starve the Bad Values in Your Organization’s Culture

Every organization, every ministry, every team has a culture. Much has been written about culture, and essentially culture is the shared values and beliefs beneath the surface that ultimately drive the behavior of the organization. This means an organization’s culture has direct bearing on how the organization acts. Terrance Deal, in his book Corporate Cultures, said culture is “the way things get done around here.” So, when unhealthy values exist in a culture, they adversely impact how the organization behaves.

Because shared values and beliefs form an organization’s culture, when one speaks of “changing the culture,” one is really speaking of replacing the values beneath the surface. It is insufficient to merely call out an unhealthy value and think it will just go away. Leaders must starve unhealthy values in the culture they are stewarding. And these unhealthy values must be starved until they are dead, and they don’t die easily. Here are three ways to starve the bad values in a culture.... Read More