Performance Culture vs. Growth Culture
This week I want to talk about the difference between a performance culture and a growth culture, and which is the better alternative. Entrepreneurs are all about results, theyâre very bottom-line, results, and outcomes driven. They tend to value hard work and outcomes, sometimes at the expense of the soft side of their organization. So I want to distinguish between two kinds of cultures - A performance culture, which is pretty typical in small businesses and entrepreneurial firms, versus a growth culture, which tends to be a bit better.Â
In a performance culture, the values are knowledge, expertise, intellect, experience, providing challenges, being driven, and identifying winners and losers. This is a great manager, and this is a poor manager, and so the great manager gets more of my time and attention, et cetera. Or maybe itâs the other way around.
A growth culture, by distinction, also has those qualities. Weâre not saying those arenât desirable qualities to have in your organization, but what a growth culture adds is safety, continuous learning, feedback loops, and how people feel. That may sound a little funny to some of you, but it is important in terms of deciding what kind of culture you want to have, identifying how that culture works for your people, and gauging how they feel about it.
Going back to safety, I donât mean physical safety. The parking lot doesnât have broken glass all over the ground, your employees are not going to be assaulted on the way to the front door, and theyâre safe from the elements, and have comfortable working spaces, and all - thatâs not the kind of safety I mean. What Iâm talking about is psychological safety where youâre not going to have negative repercussions for making a small mistake. Psychological safety simply means that the culture allows for risk taking, and making a few mistakes without being brutalized. It doesnât mean that people arenât held accountable, it just means that the culture is understanding of mistakes. We donât reward them, but we donât have terrible punishments for them either. People are safe to stretch a little bit, and get out of their comfort zones, and make a few decisions that otherwise they may not make.
In either organization thereâs a delicate balance between challenging your people, and nurturing your people. If you challenge them too much too often youâre going to break them down, youâre going to burn them out. On the other hand, if you donât challenge them enough, people will stay in their comfort zones, and wonât grow and learn and add value to the organization over time. Thatâs not so bad, we all need cogs in the machine, but at the same time we want to make sure that we have enough challenge for our people.
Small business leaders are some of the most intense people youâre ever going to meet. They are driven, and focused, and so results oriented. But why canât I be a happy achiever and let that happiness flow throughout the culture? Why canât we have fun at the same time that weâre setting new sales records, and new customer satisfaction records, and all these other things?
Think about it this way, if you want to transform the culture in your organization from being a purely performance culture to be more of a growth mindset and a learning mindset, think less about negatives like just being a driving taskmaster, and think more about being a happy achiever, offering more pats on the back  and appreciations for your people. Tell people when they do a good job. Itâs as simple as that.
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