"We made the mistake of living with that for far too long" Joe Cussens on not dealing with a toxic culture.

"We made the mistake of living with that for far too long" Joe Cussens, founder of the Bath Pub Company. Joe was talking about a toxic culture which he hoped would change by itself - he vowed never to let that happen again.

Joe and Justin Steal set up the Bath Pub Company in 2006 with the purchase of the Marlborough Tavern in Bath. It was full of dark wood, fruit machines and empty chairs - devoid of customers. They gutted it. They made the place light, airy and welcoming. And they hired great people with lots of experience. They opened a kitchen and served well prepared and well priced food to their newly acquired customers. And things were going well.

Until they weren't.

Something started bubbling, and we don't mean the soup. A rift was forming between the kitchen and front of house. Two teams separated by 'the pass' were in competition with each other, knocking each other, against each other.

I've worked in hospitality, in pubs and hotels, on and off all my life and the kitchen:front of house divide is common. I've seen many waitresses and waiters reduced to tears by an aggressive chef, and a number of chefs walk out in sheer frustration of the demands or expectations of the waiting team.

Joe shared how he wasn't sure how to handle the situation at first, so he didn't. Things only got worse. Eventually it got too much, and he started wondering about his responsibility in the culture of the pubs. He'd known what he wanted to create for the customers but hadn't yet considered what he wanted to create for the staff. Joe worked hard with his team to name what was amazing about them already, what they wanted for the customers and for each other and from there landed on a description of a culture they could always aspire to (their values). It took work, was hard, challenged him at times - but in the end he knew it paid off - in all sorts of ways.

When Joe and his co-founder, Justin Sleath, came to sell their company the buyers revealed they had all visited the pubs as 'mystery shoppers'.

"They all want to be here" was the view of the buyers (I paraphrase from an anecdote). "People really like working in these pubs." It had all been worth it, the uncomfortable conversations, the hard boundaries on what was acceptable and what wasn't, the testing of their own leadership. It was worth it.

Like Joe, if we are honest, sometimes we all hope that our cultural challenges just work themselves out. And don't get me wrong - occasionally they do.

More often than not however, they don't - and if left they get bigger, deeper and even more impactful.

- The people we want to stay, leave.

- The people we want to change, get more powerful.

- The behaviours we want to see, move further away.

- Clients and customers feel it and drift.

- The bottom line is impacted through recruitment, sickness, or lost sales.

In some organisations investing in people, in relationships and in culture can be seen as a luxury, its a 'nice to have' - It's fluffy or touchy feely. I've heard leaders say things like "We don't need all that stuff, we just need people to do their jobs!"

In some other organisations they turn to process and systems as a way of enforcing a desired culture. Creating rules, guides, systems and directives hoping to corral people into 'being' a certain way. While this can take investment, be time consuming and can result in some beautiful and clear documents, this alone isn't going to shift a culture or deal with a 'people problem'. I'm sorry to say, but this is the easy stuff.

Culture, like performance, is an emergent property. It is the output of a variety of known and unknown inputs. Those inputs will of course include the processes and systems in our organisations as worked on by our well intended company above, but they will also include our shared values - whether we've named them or not. The culture will be coming from the behaviours of our people - all of our people. And in this complex cultural soup, will also be the mindsets and beliefs of our people. Beliefs about themselves and others that may have been planted and reinforced throughout their entire lives!

Heavy right?

Well, yes and no.

Its from the interactions and constant evolutions of all of these inputs that cultures emerge. Picture each input as a thread in a spiders web - you touch one thread and the whole web wobbles.

For example, if I believe myself to be safe to fail here I may share my ideas more freely, this may be supported by a sense that everyone around here values creativity and fairness. And perhaps we have a utilisation policy that allows for experimentation or R and D. Now, put simply, all of the inputs are working together to create a culture of innovation, fun, great ideas and bad ideas - but ideas!

On the flip side, if I come in with a protective mindset, believing everyone around me to be out for themselves. If we have a bonus system based on individual performance and, when my colleague is being a 'high performing arsehole' we turn a blind eye to the 'how' and celebrate the win, I will likely play into a culture of ego and agenda. Don't expect collaboration or support from me - not because I'm not a collaborative or supportive person - but because the culture here is telling me 'that's not how we do it around here'.

Let's play with a third scenario for a moment.

• We have a boss who tells me I have permission to decide what's right for me and the company.

• That same boss is often snapping at people for changing the way we do things 'that's not how we do it here'.

• We have a value on the wall that says we 'trust' each other.

• We have a policy that says I have to phone in sick every morning that I am unwell, and another that says I have to clock in and out to prove my hours.

• I am encouraged to develop myself and told to develop my people.

• We have to meet 100% utilisation rates on client work.

• I am told that I need to delegate more and be mores strategic.

• I am constantly asked by my boss, and their boss, about details of something someone in my team is working on - and its clear they expect me to know the answer.

The inputs to our culture here are incongruent - I don't know how to be!

We will likely have a culture of second guessing, caveating, covering our arses and pointing to policy as a place of safety. I will be exhausted from trying to cover all bases and feel unfulfilled by my work - and I will never be everything my boss wants me to be.

At Satori, we work with organisations to help them take to take a step back and consider the whole web. We help them to have the conversations that matter, to identify what will really get in their way and, to practice the mindsets and behaviours that will craft the cultures they desire, and underpin their success. So, with that all in mind, what people problem are you hoping will work itself out?