Let’s say you recognize the importance of culture as it affects your organization but you aren’t quite sure what that culture is, or even what it should be. These are two very important considerations. In this article, I’ll address the first question.
Culture in an organization exists in three distinct flavors; think of like vanilla, rocky road, and strawberry ice cream. The strawberry-flavored ice cream can be associated with aspiration. It is the culture to which you aspire. That will be defined differently for every organization with different priorities as will be discussed more fully in the next article on this subject. The rocky road flavored culture exists in the minds of leadership. It is a strange mixture of the existing culture, the aspiration culture, and denial. As a general rule, most leaders believe this flavor to be the truth. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case. The rocky road culture is the flavor that keeps the organization trapped in mediocrity and complacency at the best, or in a downward spiral of ineffectual execution at the worst. The real challenge addressed in this article is for leadership to be able to break free of their perceptions of the culture and face the reality. The vanilla flavored culture is the reality. It is how the culture actually works within the organization. Though not articulated, most employees know the boundaries and either conform or leave.
Obviously, the goal is to introduce and support a strawberry-flavored culture throughout the organization. To get to that place requires being able to, as Jim Collins wrote in Good to Great, embrace the brutal truth. Before I get to that, let me interject here that the aspiration or strawberry flavored culture can’t be narrowly defined. There are many different viable culture types, each one appropriate in different organizations with different leaders in different environments. Be on the lookout for my next article that addresses the aspiration culture and how to get there. What I will attempt to do in the remainder of this article is provide three simple ways to diagnose the current culture within an organization.
First, notice the type and level of interaction between your employees in their everyday work. Are the interactions frequent or few? Are they “business only,” “social only,” or mixed? Do the employees spend too much time in social engagement or none at all? Are there cliques that clearly exclude some? What about silos that can impede productivity? Do the interactions reveal inclusivity or the opposite? This metric will provide a sense of the level of trust that exists between people and even departments. It can also evidence levels of urgency or complacency within the organization. Trust/distrust and urgency/complacency are two major cultural factors.
Second, notice the engagement of your employees in their work and in meetings. This is usually seen in one of three behaviors: active engagement, complacency, and negative engagement. Active engagement means high performance in their work and actively engaging in meetings by being willing to speak up to offer ideas or ask questions. Complacent employees deliver an average level of work both in quality and quantity. They generally don’t speak up in meetings and never voluntarily take on extra responsibility. Those who offer negative engagement, Robert Kelly in The Power of Followership calls these people alienated followers, are erratic in the quality and quantity of their work depending on what they like to do. These alienated followers are the source of most grumblings, complaints, and opposition. The balance of these employees within the organization has a definite impact on the culture of the organization. Being able to identify which employees fit into each broad category is important in understanding the culture of the organization and the competency of leadership.
Third, does the leadership team exemplify the best interpretation of the values of the organization at every level? Obviously, this assumes that the organization has a core set of values. How closely the leadership team practices those core values will set the level for the entire organization, for good or bad. Even if most shine in this area, even one deviation sends a clear message to the rest of the organization. In organizations with healthy cultures, leaders hold themselves to high standards.
These three observations can give you a down and dirty look at the culture that exists within your organization. Keep in mind there are much more thorough evaluations that can be made to determine the culture of your organization and companies that specialize in making those assessments as well as providing input on how to change your culture. Still, if culture is a relatively new consideration these three observations are a good place to start. In my next article, I’ll be discussing ways to change the culture of your organization.
