# Culture vs. climate: definitions and differences

- **Episode:** [08](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/08.md) (2022-08-23)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** culture vs climate, definitions, workplace
- **Time:** 7:14–11:31 (start 434s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/08?t=434](https://truthliesandwork.com/08?t=434)

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[7:14] Leanne Elliott: So, climate is more about staff's perceptions of how the work environment is currently impacting them, impacting the team, impacting their work, impacting their wellbeing. Climate is fairly changeable, and it can fluctuate. So, for example, if you're in an organisation, say you are in a school, and your school typically is all about teamwork, it's very much around positive relationships and enablement, Um, but then you'll— you get announced that Ofsted are coming in to inspect. Your organisational climate is going to shift very quickly. It's going to become more about, right, process-driven. How do we show this? How do we achieve that? How do we evidence this? How do we get everybody to hit these deadlines very quickly? The climate is going to change to facilitate the current challenge that the organisation is going through. Culture, on the other hand, is much more ingrained within the norms and the expected behaviours of a workplace. So it's less on what is being done and how it's being done
[8:15] Al Elliott: So if you are a creative agency and you have, you win a big project, it's coming towards the end of this deadline, then your climate might be one of, one of like, we've got to rush, we've got to, we've got to make sure this work's good and done on time, etc., etc. That might not necessarily affect the culture, which is everyone does the best they possibly can and really cares about the, about the customer or the client. But you're saying that the culture can fluctuate throughout perhaps a year, whereas the—
[8:39] Leanne Elliott: sorry, the climate can fluctuate throughout the year, whereas the culture Yeah, unless there's a fundamental change within the business, rapid growth, for example, that can threaten the existing culture within the business. But if you don't go through a significant change, then culture is going to be fairly stable, unless you want, you know, you're either in intervention or something happens to the business. Whereas climate is going to fluctuate with both the individuals and the environment in which they operate. Right, okay
[9:09] Al Elliott: So, how does a business owner manage the climate or create an engaging climate?
[9:13] Leanne Elliott: So, I think really with, um, with climate, we first need to think about culture, because climate is also one of those things that fairly, maybe fairly uncontrollable, depending on the other influences on the business. So, for example, at the moment, the cost of living crisis is causing significant challenges for businesses, both in terms of the, um, The financial implications of that and also the wellbeing of staff potentially. Climate is also a phenomenon of external factors that are uncontrollable. We always like to focus on what is controllable. I think if we first look at culture, the tricky thing with culture is there's no real agreed definition on culture. Again, we've touched on this before when we talk about recruiting for culture fit, and that is one of the first issues. That said, some more recent research has looked at hundreds of models on culture, and it's found that 8 typical types of culture, essentially mapped on a scale of how people interact, whether they are independent or interdependent, and how they adapt to change. So, are they operating in environments that are typically quite flexible and rapidly changing, or are they in environments that are quite stable? The important thing with this research and what was concluded is that Of these 8 culture types, there isn't one that's superior to the other. They all come with their advantages and disadvantages. So, if we take 2 opposite cultures, so, in terms of how these cultures are mapped, the 2 that would be considered kind of polar opposites of each other. So, one of the cultures of the 8 cultures that was identified is called a caring culture. So, a caring culture will focus on relationships. Mutual trust. Work environments are going to be very warm, very collaborative, very welcoming places. They're going to be defined by people who really help and support one another, go out their way to help and support one another. Employees typically are united by a sense of meaning, loyalty, and leaders are really going to emphasise the sincerity behind teamwork and these positive relationships. Think I think something like the NHS is gonna have typically a caring culture