Be True to Your Organizational Culture

Articles about the legendary corporate cultures of Apple, Zappos, Google and similar high tech or entrepreneurial organizations abound. In these laid back organizations, employees accomplish phenomenal outcomes, all while bringing their dogs to work, playing foosball, darts, assorted video games, pianos, ping pong, swimming in lap pools, and going to gyms that include yoga, dance and meditation classes. To keep energy levels up, employees are treated to a wide variety of foods, both of the healthy type and the all American style. And, when feeling stressed, they can nap or get a massage.

Who would not want to work for any of these high tech/high touch legends? Is this what contemporary corporate culture should look like? Do we have to have an environment like these legends to attract and retain star performers today?

In short, no.

Fortunately organizational cultures come in all different flavors, and there is enough variety that an employee will be able to find a great fit, regardless of the corporate culture. In truth, not everyone would thrive in a loosely managed, entrepreneurial environment. In reality, most of us today work in cultures that, while would not be described as stiff or stodgy, would be described as somewhat more traditional.

What exactly is a culture? Your company culture reflects the collective shared beliefs, values, attitudes and resulting behaviors of everyone in your workforce. This culture is driven by your organization’s goals, strategies, structure, and approaches to employees, customers and the greater community. As such, your company’s culture has a significant effect on the success of your business and your bottom line. As we move further away from the recession and our organizations continue to grow, attracting high caliber talent will become more competitive. If your organization has a reputation for having a great culture, that will be a recruiting bonus.

If someone stopped you today and asked, “How would you describe your company’s culture?” could you accurately describe how it feels to work in your organization? What words would you use to describe the culture: innovative, edgy, aggressive, people focused, or traditional, authoritarian, outcomes driven, or risk adverse and slow to change?

To be able to accurately describe your organization’s culture, you need to be able to answer the following questions, not so much from your leadership perspective, but from an employee’s perspective:

• What’s really important around here?
• What do we reward?
• What do we punish?
• Who gets promoted?
• Who is a good cultural fit, and who isn’t?
• How do we play around here?

Do you like your answers to the questions above, or do you want to make some changes to your culture? Before you can begin changing your business culture, you too have to be able to accurately identify your current culture for what it is.

For an objective read on your corporate culture, conduct an Employee Opinion Survey, which will give you quantifiable data to analyze. If conducting a survey is not an option, pay close attention to the policies, systems, procedures, bureaucracies and reward systems that have developed over time. Get out of your office, often. Ask team members for their insights about what is working and what is limiting their effectiveness to do their jobs, or hurting motivation and morale. Listen objectively to their responses, and ask for ideas about what needs to change to create an even better culture.

Changing your culture is tough, but not impossible. Before you can change it, though, you’ve got to have an accurate reading of the current climate and culture. You can have a well-written vision, mission and values statements beautifully framed and hung on the walls of your organization, but that’s not necessarily an indication of the culture. To understand an organization’s culture, it’s not what the words on the walls are saying, it’s the buzz in halls.

What are people saying about your culture? Do you like what you hear? What are you going to do differently, moving forward, to create a working environment that reflects more positively on you and your organization, making it easier for employees to feel even higher levels of commitment and engagement?

Photo courtesy Flickr user, SusieBue.