Attend To The Weeds In Your Organizational Culture

I put a lot of work into my garden early in the summer. Everything looked wonderful. Over the next month I noticed some little weeds popping up. I kept saying to myself I should take care of it, but I kept putting it off.

Now, guess what? They are everywhere. I’ve been trying to clear them but it’s so much work. And it seems like they’re growing back overnight.

Note to self: attend to problems as they arise, or they will spread. Then it will be infinitely harder to deal with them.

That lesson applies just as well to attending to inclusion in your organization. 

Someone makes an inappropriate joke; an interpersonal conflict is brewing; you’ve noticed a pattern of behavior that may be driven by bias. 

These are weeds. 

If you don’t address the issues in the moment, the offenders might feel the behavior is okay. Others might imitate it. “I guess this is what we do here.”

The people affected might lose trust. “No one has my back. Why even say anything? It won’t make a difference.”

Before long, you don’t just have incidents—you have a culture. The roots will have gone deep. Weeds will have entangled with other plants. You can’t remove them without disrupting or even damaging the garden. 

Tend your organizational culture like a gardener. Pay attention to people’s well-being, and deal with issues before they become invasive species. 

Don’t wait until you have to dig deep and rip things up.