Elements of Culture
by Miki Saxon
Corporate culture is a big deal these days, often seen as the difference between success and failure.
Millions of words have been used by thousands of people to describe and explain culture, but it pretty much boils down to the following:
- How the people relate to each other professionally and personally; their personalities and interpersonal communications.
- The work environment/atmosphere/ethics/morale/people/style/etc.
- The company’s identity.
- Environment of interaction and judgment.
- The primary reason people join/leave the company/manager.
- The way things really are as opposed to how they’re described (the walk vs. the talk).
Money lures, but culture holds. Culture is why people join a company—and more importantly, why they stay. It is what motivates (or demotivates) them, and cultural changes are frequently why they leave. Additionally, people learn from experience and eventually will reflect the traits of the cultures in which they work; as with other relationships, people will continue to gravitate to the same situation they were in previously.
Cultural elements people want:
- The opportunity to truly “make a difference.”
- To be treated fairly.
- Positive ethics and values.
- To trust management and be trusted by them.
- To embrace the idea that work can and should be fun.
- Accurate prioritizing of company, team and individual goals while keeping them synergistic
- A positive “can-do” attitude (aggressive, but realistic).
- A conscious effort to stamp out “not invented here” syndrome (in all its varied forms), so as to not waste time reinventing the wheel.
- Continuing development and quality improvement in people, product/services and processes.
- Committing to employees, customers, and investors—and meeting those commitments.
- An open, accurate, company-wide flow of information starting from the top.
- An environment that encourages people to reach their full potential, professionally and personally.
What people don’t want:
- Politics: personal, group, or senior management
- Unfairness; favoritism; star mentality
- Unnecessary bureaucracy; inflexible process or bureaucracy masquerading as process
- Poor management practices such as: erratic management; micro-management; workaholism; intimidation; belittling or contemptuous treatment; no loyalty; poor scheduling; the attitude that “we don’t have the time to do it right but we have the time to do it over”
- Any form of harassment whether overt or covert
- A generally negative attitude, i.e., the glass is half empty
- Arrogance or an elitist attitude
- An unwillingness (at whatever level) to seek and implement the compromises necessary to meet organizational needs within the required timeframe
Obviously there are many more philosophies, attitudes, and actions that I could list, but most would fit the spirit, if not the specifics of the two lists.
In general culture comes from, or is enabled by, the top and rarely can be changed from below.
That said, every person in a management role from team leader up creates a subculture in their own organization.
If you are strong enough and believe deeply enough, you can become an umbrella to your organization and shield it from the toxic elements in the overall culture.
But don’t kid yourself; this is a difficult path to choose, so it is wise to make the choice consciously, instead of accidentally bucking your company’s culture.
Join me tomorrow when we look at how to create a culture—or sub-culture.
Image credit: HikingArtist on flickr
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:10 am
[…] in a Row: 7 Steps to Create Culture by Miki Saxon Yesterday we looked at positive and negative aspects of culture and I said that today we would discuss how to […]