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facility asset management Building Blocks of Culture for Facilities Management – Part III, Define Roles of Individuals and Leaders Matt Adams, P.E. 34 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 FACILITIES MANAGER I n our last column on culture, we continued to discuss the importance of culture as a manage- ment tool. In addition, we started to outline the building blocks associated with purposefully building and nurturing culture within our organizations. e second building block discussed previously was that of defining our values and measuring our baseline. "Clarifying the Value System and breathing life into it are the greatest contributions a leader can make." Peters and Waterman—In Search of Excellence; Lessons from America's Best Run Companies To be proactive in cultivating our culture, we must carefully select the values that we want our culture to be based upon. is selection process involves a cross-section of our staff in all areas. We want to create a culture that engages them, and is based on the values that they find most important in their workplace. Once these one or two highest priority values are selected, an initial baseline measurement of the current culture must be completed (an example was provided from the University of Chicago on how to create an empirical scale to measure culture within our organization). is tool helps indicate the norms, bias, attitudes, and behaviors that define our current culture. Next in our path to creating culture is Part III – Defining the Roles of Individuals and Leaders. REQUIRED: ACTIVE PARTICIPATION FROM STAFF Once again this building block requires active participation from a wide cross-section of our staff. In the past this work may have been done only by the senior leaders of our organization or external consultants alone, and this has proven to be unsuccessful. Only our staff (who spend one-third of their life in the workplace) understand what makes that workplace engaging to them. Demonstrating these values through various behaviors becomes the basic substance of our organi- zational culture. It is not only the large gestures that prove our culture is based on one value or another, but the minute daily individual actions that add up—one after another into thousands—over weeks, months, and years. It is the hard work of determin- ing these actions that define our culture, and must come directly from our staff. Providing guidance and facilitating the process are of utmost importance in this process. For most within our organization there are four basic working relationships. ey are: • Me and my leader • Me and my customers • Me and my peers • Me and my direct reports For many, all four of these working relationships apply, although for those without direct reports, only three apply. It is the roles we play in these relation- ships that provide the relational (or human) basis Boss Me Direct Reports Customers Peers

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