So here are some very simple thoughts. I observe many businesses in financial services and other sectors taking good actions to improve their culture. Would it add to those efforts to create a simple cultural progress scorecard that was discussed regularly at Board and management meetings?

It could look something like this. Measure your progress through tracking tracking a few key measures for each of 3 populations in your business. That is your:

1. Senior leadership team

2. Middle management team

3. Core staff Let’s consider some measures for each.

The Senior teams job is to create the framework and monitoring systems, the middle management team need to execute and your core staff need to understand what they need to do and how to do it. In simple terms therefore we could boil this down as follows with these questions for each group:

1. Are Vision, values and behaviours clearly set out? Are there good feedback systems in place? Eg whistleblowing. Are we demonstrating and leading the required values and behaviours?

2. Are we managing the business in line with desired values and behaviours? Are we assessing our teams performance correctly?

3. Do I enjoy working here?\r\nIs my boss managing in line with company values and behaviours? Arguably the questions for the Core Staff group are the ones that companies often take steps to get the answers but perhaps not in the other two groups? The answer may lie in a more structured programme of ‘Observation’. How good would it be if all members of a Senior Leadership Team had to observe just 1 meeting a quarter in another business area and feedback.

That concept is equally valid of course for core staff or middle managers attending Board and Management meetings. In times of change, behaviours can be the first to falter. I hope these comments are food for thought. I see a lot of excellent work often going into the definition of required behaviours but perhaps less zeal in the execution throughout the organisation. Finally I think there is upside in looking at your performance management. I think behaviours can be under assessed and I see many companies using the 50/50 rule – 50% on objectives and 50% behaviours. Do the two knit together well in your business?