Understanding Corporate Culture
Culture: n 1. natural phenomenon that is created whenever a
group of people come together to collaborate; 2. foundation for
all decisions and actions within an organization; 3. the way
things are around here.
Every time people come together with a shared purpose, culture
is created. This group of people could be a family,
neighborhood, project team, or company. Culture is automatically
created out of the combined thoughts, energies, and attitudes of
the people in the group.
I often compare culture to electricity. Culture is an energy
force that becomes woven through the thinking, behavior, and
identity of those within the group. Culture is powerful and
invisible and its manifestations are far reaching. Culture
determines a company's dress code, work environment, work hours,
rules for getting ahead and getting promoted, how the business
world is viewed, what is valued, who is valued, and much more.
Culture shows up in both visible and invisible ways. Some
manifestations of this energy field called "culture" are easy to
observe. You can see the dress code, work environment, perks,
and titles in a company. This is the surface layer of culture.
These are only some of the visible manifestations of a culture.
The far more powerful aspects of culture are invisible. The
cultural core is composed of the beliefs, values, standards,
paradigms, worldviews, moods, internal conversations, and
private conversations of the people that are part of the group.
This is the foundation for all actions and decisions within a
team, department, or organization.
Visible Manifestations of Culture �Dress Code �Work Environment
�Benefits �Perks �Conversations �Work/Life Balance �Titles & Job
Descriptions �Organizational Structure �Relationships
Invisible Manifestations of Culture �Values �Private
Conversations (with self or confidants) �Invisible Rules
�Attitudes �Beliefs �Worldviews �Moods and Emotions �Unconscious
Interpretations �Standards �Paradims �Assumptions
Business leaders often assume that their company's vision,
values, and strategic priorities are synonymous with their
company's culture. Unfortunately, too often, the vision, values,
and strategic priorities may only be words hanging on a plaque
on the wall.
In a thriving profitable company, employees will embody the
values, vision, and strategic priorities of their company. What
creates this embodiment (or lack of embodiment) is the culture
that permeates the employees' psyches, bodies, conversations,
and actions.
The energy fields that make up a group's culture are dynamic
and
change continuously. Culture is created and constantly
reinforced on a daily basis through conversations, symbols,
rituals, written materials, and body language. It is the small,
mundane actions and behaviors that create a culture and can
shift a culture.
Creating and sustaining a healthy, vibrant culture requires
reinforcement of the culture through daily and proactive
conversations and communications. The failure to discuss the
values, purpose, and rules within a group often leads to a
culture that is at cross purposes with the stated intention of
the group. Poor communication creates a lot of confusion and
often a crisis of meaninglessness.
Since a culture is created every time a group of people come
together to form a team, a company will have many sub-cultures
that exist within its main culture. For example, the marketing
and technology teams may have different worldviews, jargon, work
hours, and ways to do things. A big challenge for today's
company is to create a strong, cohesive corporate culture that
pulls all of the sub-cultures together and ensures that they can
work as a unified team.
Most companies try to "fix" perceived problems by addressing the
parts of the corporate culture that are easy to see. Some
quick-fixes include holding Friday beer bashes and company
picnics or adding fringe benefits and perks. None of these
actions will have a powerful or lasting effect on a company's
culture.
So, if the powerful part of culture is invisible, how can you
affect it? Through conversation. Conversations have the power to
make the invisible visible. Language is not merely descriptive,
it is generative. Language and conversations have the power to
generate a new, powerful future and to create a cultural energy
field that will support and sustain this future.
The CEO and leadership team of a company have a powerful impact
on culture through their conversations and behaviors. Business
leaders can pro-actively create a thriving culture by
understanding what culture is (and is not) and learning how to
have fundamental business conversations.
Unfortunately, most business leaders receive little to no
education on how to have powerful conversations that generate
culture and actions. Culture building can be learned, but it
takes an honest commitment from the leadership team of an
organization.
About the author:
Find out how to shift your corporate culture to increase profits
and retain employees. Visit http://www.culturebuilders.
com for free articles and white papers on corporate culture.
Written by: Debra Thorsen
|
