Hope you have been well in the last two weeks and that you are learning a few things whenever you read my column.Today we are looking at culture, a thing that différentiâtes Human Resources from équipement.
Organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs how people behave in organizations. These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs. Every organization should develop and maintain a unique culture, which provides guidelines and boundaries for the behavior of the people in it. In other words Culture is the self-sustaining pattern of behavior that determines how things are done
Many organizations start business without clearly articulating exactly the kind of culture they want. In what areas they want things done in a particular way. When you don’t plan your culture from the beginning you end up with just anything that is just called culture for want of a better word and that is very difficult to change.
Your organizational culture “defines for you and for all others, how your organization does business, how your organization interacts with one another and how the team interacts with the outside world, specifically your customers, employees, partners, suppliers, media and all other stakeholders”. This is a well worn quote.
A strong organizational culture keeps your company’s core values front and center in all aspects of its day-to-day operations and organizational structure. Obviously you must have worked out. The value of doing so is incalculable. In short, your culture is the sum of your company’s beliefs in action.
One of the greatest advantages of a strong organizational culture is that it has the power to turn employees into advocates or critics
A strong organizational culture attracts and helps you keep the best people.
A well functioning culture assists with on-boarding. People fail in new jobs because of poor fit, poor delivery or poor adjustment to changes down the road. Assuming you’ve aligned the organization around the need for your new employees and acquired them in the right way, your on-boarding program should accommodate their needs (so they can do real work), assimilate them into the organization (so they fit culturally) and accelerate their progress (so they can deliver and adjust).
A successful organizational culture brings together the people in the organization and keeps them aligned. When your culture is clear, different perspectives can gather behind it with common purpose. The culture at your organization sets expectations for how people behave and work together, and how well they function as a team.
In this way, culture can break down the boundaries between siloed teams, guide decision-making, and improve workflow overall. On the flip side, a toxic organizational culture has the capacity to do just the opposite. Thereby doing permanent damage.
Reports show that organizational culture has a direct impact on performance and, more importantly, your employees’ wellbeing. A healthy culture addresses both of these areas by finding an appropriate balance based on company values.
Frost (2000), asserted that the culture of an organisation is influenced by four other dimensions, (1) the national culture in which it operates or from which it draws its employees; (2) functional or professional culture , based on the professional, technical and vocational groups which make up the workforce in the organisation; (3) ethnic culture comprising the norms drawn from the mix of the ethnicity of the employees; and (4) industrial culture , based on the general cultural influences prevailing in a particular industry.
There are a few elements in building culture. Some are,Purpose : Going back to the premise that we should have a greater sense of ethics and empathy. We should be less selfish, and want to be a part of solving a problem greater than ourselves. We need to understand the why of what we do as I keep saying. Organisations now need to have a strong mission statement where they can share the why with their team members. A great example that comes to mind is Cokes mission which is bigger than any one person. It is to refresh the world in mind body soul and spirit.To inspire moments of optimism and happiness through their brands and actions.
Ownership: The second element in building a great organizational culture is ownership. Ownership is about giving people the opportunity to be accountable for their results without being micromanaged. Giving people the autonomy over their time to accomplish their goals. Basecamp is a company that builds software for project management. There are modern organizations that just set expectations and give people the opportunity to build their own schedules around their projects. But how do you keep people engaged with a sense of purpose? Well, you do that through the third element, community.
Community: Community is that sense of belonging to a group of people that shares the same or similar principles, goals, and values. Community is a place where there is camaraderie.Modern organizations rely more on having company standards instead of just values. Their argument is that you can’t change a person’s values when they walk into your company, but you can uphold everyone to specific standards. Some of their standards are: work to live, ask more questions, and never stop learning. These organizations ensure that their culture of their breaths these standards through their work. Building community is something as simple as having lunch and hangout times on Fridays, and company trips. It varies from company to company. Community, is unique to each organization.
Effective Communication: The fourth element in building a great organizational culture is effective communication. Effective communication sounds like common sense, but trust me it is not common practice. It means consistency in processes and investing time learning the personalities and communication dynamics of team members. Google created a research project called Project Aristotle, where they found that the most collaborative teams are the ones where everyone speaks equally. In many of their engineering teams apparently they have a list with checkmarks to make sure everyone is speaking the same number of times during their meetings.
Good Leadership: I would say this is the backbone of the cultural dynamics of any organization. The leader has to constantly push the mission, standards, community, and processes of the organization .Without effective leadership the other four elements cannot thrive. People want leadership with integrity and compassion. People want authenticity. People want a leader who is clear on expectations. People want to know they have a leader who cares about them.
These elements are not new to people. People have always liked purpose, ownership, community, effective communication, and good leadership. It’s in our own human nature. But now we have found words to describe those things to build high performing cultures.
Please be encouraged to be intentional about applying these elements, and building great cultures in your organizations. Some of these points I got from research and others I have seen it in organizations I have personally worked for or consulted for.
Olamide Balogun
