The document outlines the responsibilities of different groups in cultivating an organization's desired culture. The Board of Directors guides the definition and development of the culture to align with business goals. The CEO and senior management define the desired culture and cultivate it through leadership actions. Human resources designs employee experiences and implements programs to enable everyone to fulfill their culture responsibilities. Middle managers deliver employee experiences, implement strategies, and cultivate engagement. Compliance, risk and ethics provide input on the culture from an ethics perspective and ensure alignment with risk management. Employees provide feedback and work to interpret and align with the desired culture through their actions and behaviors. Achieving the desired culture requires everyone having a shared understanding and working together in a coordinated effort.

1. Board of Directors
Guide the definition and
development of the desired
culture, ensuring that it aligns with
business goals and meets the
needs of all stakeholders.
Human Resources
• Design employee experiences that interpret and
reinforce the desired culture.
• Implement strategies and programs that enable
everyone to fulfill their culture responsibilities, such
as offering training programs that develop leader
capacity for culture-building and employee
engagement; and developing culture guidebooks,
processes such as performance management, and
systems such as rewards and recognition programs
that nurture the desired culture.
Middle Managers
• Deliver employee experiences that
interpret and reinforce the desired culture.
• Implement culture-building strategies.
• Cultivate employee engagement with the
desired culture.
• Fulfill the culture-building responsibilities
of employees.
Compliance, Risk & Ethics
• Provide input to the CEO & Sr. Management on
the definition of the desired culture from the
perspective of ethics and risk.
• Ensure execution on the desired culture across
the organization aligns with risk management
strategies through tools such as ethics decision
trees, processes such as a whistleblower
program, and systems such as compliance
monitoring that align with the desired culture.
Employees
• Provide input to the CEO & Sr. Management
Team by providing insights on how the desired
culture aligns with or differs from the actual
culture, customer perspectives, and employee
needs and expectations; and providing
feedback on existing culture-building efforts
and ideas for new ones.
• Create, adhere to, and enforce routines and
norms that interpret with the desired culture.
• Align attitudes and behaviors with the desired
culture.
For an organization to achieve its
desired culture, everyone must have
a clear, consistent, common
understanding of it -- and everyone
must work together in a deliberate
and coordinated effort to cultivate it.
While each person or group is
accountable in their own way,
everyone shares accountability for
achieving the desired culture.
Read the Harvard Business
Review article.
http://deniseleeyohn.com
CULTURE IS
EVERYONE’S
RESPONSIBILITY
© Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.
CEO & Sr. Management
Define the desired culture and cultivate it
through leadership actions including setting
objectives, strategies, and key results that
prioritize culture-building; and designing the
organization and its operational processes to
support and advance the company’s purpose
and core values.