Building a Culture of Excellence

Semicolon Africa
5 min readMay 17, 2024

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L-R: Toyosi Egunjobi (Global Compliance Manager, Encryptus), Seun Agbede-Olafusi (Chief People Officer, Branch International Inc), Ashley Immanuel (COO, Semicolon Africa), Yewande Adewusi (COO & Operating Principal, Alitheia Capital), and Gabriel Balogun (Head of Learning & Development, Moniepoint)

All leaders want high-performing teams but building them can be challenging. In our latest HR Disrupt workshop at Semicolon, we explored how to build a culture of excellence through an interactive workshop, followed by a panel discussion. Below, we summarize some of the key insights that emerged. To build a culture of excellence:

Define the organization’s purpose

In everything we do, we should start with “why.” While leaders are typically clear on an organization’s vision, their staff may not be. When teams do not fully understand the organization’s purpose, they can fall into the trap of working hard to achieve the wrong outcomes.

When we ensure that all staff understand the organization’s purpose, it helps us empower and delegate effectively, drives innovation, and increases retention.

As Yewande Adewusi pointed out, “The first thing you have to do is communicate: What are we doing? What are our goals? What are we trying to achieve? … You have to really spell it out.”

Do all of your organization’s staff understand the organization’s purpose?

Do they understand how their work aligns with that purpose?

Align programs and communications to the desired culture

We want to avoid the trap of having policies, procedures, or messages (especially from leadership) that work in opposition to the culture we are trying to create.

While this seems obvious, it happens more often than you might expect. For example:

  • A company that says it wants a culture of innovation, but then sets aggressive short-term targets that force the team to scramble under a “business as usual” approach.
  • The company that sets “teamwork and collaboration” as a cultural goal but uses systems for pay and promotion that put employees in competition with each other.
  • The CEO who says that he wants staff to be innovative, but harshly and publicly criticizes employees who make mistakes or ask questions.

HR and business leaders can periodically review the organization’s policies, procedures, and ways of working to check and correct for misalignment with their desired culture.

The panelists in our discussion also emphasized the role that senior leadership plays in modeling culture. As Olutoyosi Egunjobi highlighted, “You have to practice what you preach. As someone trying to inspire change, if I’m not living, breathing, and exhibiting that change or that culture, nobody is going to take me seriously.”

But what can HR managers do if their senior leadership is not modeling the desired culture, and does not seem open to feedback? Yewande Adewusi, who has engaged with a range of different organizations, suggested that “Sometimes you need to get a third party in to help your leaders — you need coaching. Know when you need an outsider to come in and help your organization.”

Do you have any policies or procedures that are working at cross-purposes with your desired culture?

Is your senior leadership team bought into and prepared to model your desired culture?

Reposition managers as coaches

We cannot create a culture of excellence without strong managers. Research by Gallup found that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement.

As Seun Agbede-Olafusi pointed out, “People underestimate the importance of managers. We like to push a lot of things to HR, but it’s really not HR. Your manager is the person who is the closest to you.”

To be effective, managers must shift from a narrow focus on tracking and enforcing KPIs to truly coaching their team members.

Keep in mind:

  • Managers may need guidance to become effective coaches, especially those who have come from backgrounds where leaders focused on command and control rather than coaching.
  • Create tools and processes that support a coaching dynamic between managers and direct reports. For example, instead of a single annual performance review that emphasizes scoring and missed KPIs, a company can establish regular progress reviews and coaching conversations, with templates that guide managers.

Managers may worry about losing authority if they build personal relationships with their direct reports. However, building relationships and driving accountability can coexist — and, in fact, managers are more likely to get the results they seek when they are coaching rather than shouting.

Are you setting a clear expectation that managers will be coaches? Does this flow through into processes such as how managers are hired, groomed and evaluated?

Do your managers understand what it means to be a coach? Do they have the competencies and resources required to do so?

Be patient and consistent

As our panelists shared their experiences building culture across various organizations, one theme we noticed was the need to not only be deliberate in changing culture but to also be persistent.

Building or changing a culture takes time. We can’t expect that our efforts will yield results overnight or get frustrated when we find ourselves reminding colleagues about our agreed behaviors for the tenth time.

That said, the responsibility of culture change does not rest with the HR lead alone. All leaders need to be visible and active in driving culture. We can also engage culture champions at all levels of the organization to help. Gabriel Balogun suggested setting up culture challenges and games to engage the workforce, noting that, “What I advise businesses to do is when you see a team or an individual exhibiting that culture, make them an ambassador.”

Be realistic — how long do you think it will take to achieve the cultural change you are aiming for?

Can culture champions help you meet these goals?

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Some useful resources:

It’s The Manager — a book from Gallup, authored by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter

Start With Why, by Simon Sinek

Brene Brown and Mike Erwin speaking about Leadership is a Relationship on the Dare to Lead podcast — Part 1 and Part 2

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