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Meet Josh Bowen

Guiding you through the digital landscape.

Josh Bowen brings more than 20 years of crisis leadership and emergency management experience to his role as VP of Organizational Excellence at Team Rubicon Canada. A Canadian Army veteran, Bowen served 13 years in the military where he was deployed on five major disaster response operations. He has taught and led in academic institutions, was a senior leader at the Canadian Red Cross, and supported the development of Canada’s National Risk Profile initiative and Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy. Bowen holds a Masters Degree in Disaster and Emergency Management from York University, an Executive MBA from the University of Alberta, and is an alumnus of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative program at Harvard University. In his spare time, Bowen can be found changing his socks on a mountain trail somewhere in the Canadian Rockies.

Aligning Purpose and Values through Culture

In start-ups, aligning an organization’s purpose and values is relatively easy. Everyone knows everyone else, you work in close proximity towards a common purpose, and you’re focused on getting the organization and its products or services off the ground and into the market. As organizations scale, building and reinforcing culture—the embodiment of the intersection of purpose and values in the way people act, behave, and make decisions—must be deliberate. As you begin to codify rough guidelines into policy, an organization’s people must be relentless in ensuring the culture reflects the desired actions and that any codification aligns with the desired culture.

Culture is about People!

While purpose and values can be written down, culture—how people behave—is what drives organizations forward, or not. Purpose and values, when thoughtfully developed, can be enduring, even as organizations and society ebb and flow. Culture, however, shifts with every new person that comes to the organization as their perception of what the organization’s purpose is and how to interpret and translate values into action. As the organization grows, deliberate attention must be paid to regularly assess whether the organization’s culture reflects the desired behaviors and be prepared to adjust course as needed.

Mission Alignment.

Whatever your espoused values are, they will not reinforce the desired culture unless both are aligned with the organization’s overarching mission. Rooting strategies and initiatives in your values reinforces their importance and priority in decision-making. When an organization’s “noble purpose”, as Hubert Joly would call it, is reinforced through its values, the culture—actions, decisions, etc.—will serve as an impact multiplier. Aligning purpose and culture starts with robust onboarding, continuous focus on reinforcing the desired actions and values, and cultivating a shared sense identity and belonging amongst the team. Culture aligned to purpose is incredibly powerful; equally powerful is a misalignment between culture and purpose.

Values in Action.

Espoused values are meant to guide actions and decisions. As such, values are not just words on a page but must be actively encouraged, nurtured, and reinforced through artifacts and stories within the organization’s culture. Through artifacts and stories, an organization encourages its people to embody those values in their daily actions. Here, the role of leadership and leaders is crucial to demonstrate “what right looks like.” If we start with the assumption that “leader” is a gift word based on the fact that people choose to follow you, and not related to a position or title, then it becomes even more critical for leaders and people in leadership positions to live the organization’s values and culture in everything they do. Ultimately, if you don’t live your values every day, they are nothing more than graffiti on the wall.

Cultural Sustainability.

Addressing the challenges that come with maintaining a cohesive, strong culture as an organization scales and evolves over time takes deliberate action and attention. Here, I’ll offer four core considerations;

  1. Engage your team frequently to share stories of organizational values and purpose being exemplified. Equally important are the stories about where people, policies, and processes may have strayed from the desired values.
  2. Leadership development must focus on and reinforce the desired values. If your values have been selected in a thoughtful manner, reinforcing them in all leadership development and training will prove more valuable than the standard “what makes a good leader” curriculum.
  3. Actively involve your people in shaping and reinforcing the desired culture. Soliciting feedback (and acting on it!), fostering open communication, and openly celebrating cultural wins can improve engagement and alignment with the organization’s purpose and values.
  4. Finally, empower people to act and make decisions so long as the actions/decisions can be directly linked to the organization’s values. Clearly articulated and commonly understood values enable speed of action in a way that no other processes can. Moreover, this approach enables the desired culture to flourish, especially when done in combination with the points above.

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