By Lisa Bodell, CEO of futurethink
Over the past 2 decades, our perception of an organization’s culture has become conflated with foosball tables and craft beer on tap. I happen to be a fan of office-sanctioned happy hours, but more often than not, work perks are just the aesthetics of culture. Your company’s culture is actually defined by the work you and your teams do every day.
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If what your teams do every day mainly involves e-mails, meetings, and reports, then brace yourself: you’re fostering a culture of busywork, not innovation.
As CEO of an innovation-training firm that engages audiences all over the world, I can assure you that busywork is plaguing companies of every size. From leaders to frontline employees, everyone is so mired in these tasks that there’s zero time for strategic imagination, creativity, or high-value work.
If e-mails, meetings, and reports are what hold us back from creating a culture of innovation—and I’m convinced that they do—how can we reduce their role in our workday? With a few changes to how your organization approaches those tasks, you can free up time to develop a culture that goes beyond surface treatments.