CULTURE- THE PERSONALITY THAT DEFINES AN ORGANIZATION

                 You can go as far as your culture takes you…

                            (Pic. courtesy http://www.nhorizons.ca/en-change-culture-change )

Organizations that have been most successful in recent times are those which have recognised the importance of creating an empowering, ethical, success driven, balanced work cultures and implemented this across their entities.

Culture impacts the way an organization is perceived in the eyes of its stake holders, employees and the external environment and has a huge bearing on the valuation of companies as well.

Google, Tatas, Birlas, Godrej, TVS Group, Reliance, Infosys, HDFC, ICICI, Wipro, Apple etc are classic examples of companies that stand for well defined corporate culture that reflects in the form of a vision that they create in our minds.

The Organizational culture is one of the major factors that influences the ratings of the organizations among the best places to work for or study at etc..

When most of the employers interview potential employees, the most critical thing they try to assess is whether the employee fits well into their organizational culture.

A number of times, wrong selections are made due to the lack of this very understanding. For example, having an individualistic and an introvert person in a team oriented or an autocratic boss in a participative decision making environment lead to divergence and disharmony at work places. It has been seen that brilliant employees get fired just because they were more focussed on their own achievements instead of taking their teams along with them.

 What is Organizational Culture ?

 Ravasi and Schultz (2006) state that organizational culture is a set of shared mental assumptions that guide interpretation and action in organizations by defining appropriate behavior for various situations. At the same time, although a company may have "own unique culture", in larger organizations, there are diverse and sometimes conflicting cultures that co-exist due to different characteristics of the management team.

Deal and Kennedy (1982) defined organizational culture as the way things get done around here.

We can say that Culture is  the ‘Consistently Used Language To Understand & Respond Everytime, across the organization'.

The following picture gives a nice overview of the concept of corporate culture.   

  Source-  www.1000ventures.com

Culture, an intangible overhang on an organizational work environment, emanates from the Promoters and the top management of the organization . It is communicated, reinforced and is consciously propagated across the organization through leadership at all levels represented  through symbols, logos, tenets, stories and legends, standard operating practices, values, mission and vision statements written and postured across the work places etc.

While it is not possible to recruit and organize a work force with same set of cultural values, organizations try to create appropriate atmosphere, reward systems, training to orient the employees towards the organizational culture.

Google presents one of the finest examples of a Great Organizational Culture that has led to phenomenal success.

http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/culture/

‘It’s really the people that make Google the kind of company it is. We hire people who are smart and determined, and we favour ability over experience. Although Googlers share common goals and visions for the company, we hail from all walks of life and speak dozens of languages, reflecting the global audience that we serve. And when not at work, Googlers pursue interests ranging from cycling to beekeeping, from frisbee to foxtrot.

We strive to maintain the open culture often associated with startups, in which everyone is a hands-on contributor and feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. In our weekly all-hands (“TGIF”) meetings—not to mention over email or in the cafe—Googlers ask questions directly to Larry, Sergey and other execs about any number of company issues. Our offices and cafes are designed to encourage interactions between Googlers within and across teams, and to spark conversation about work as well as play’

Google’s 10 point philosophy constantly reinforces its culture and values across the organization constantly and consistently. 

http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/philosophy/

Ten things we know to be true

We first wrote these “10 things” when Google was just a few years old. From time to time we revisit this list to see if it still holds true. We hope it does—and you can hold us to that

·         Focus on the user and all else will follow

·         It’s best to do one thing really, really well.

·         Fast is better than slow.

·         Democracy on the web works.

·         You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.

·         You can make money without doing evil.

·         There’s always more information out there.

·         The need for information crosses all borders.

·         You can be serious without a suit.

·         Great just isn’t good enough.

Customer Centricity, focus on  individual successes and for team accomplishments, ethical, informal, Innovation friendly, fun loving yet performance driven and endeavour to excel are some of the  hallmarks of Google’s corporate culture. Google recruits such employees that it feels, embody the company’s values and also have an unlimited hunger for information, that drives the organization towards its mission.

 The healthy and robust organizational culture at Google enables the company to

§  Have a Competitive edge derived from innovation and customer service

§  Derive Consistent, efficient employee performance

§  Have happy and satisfied employees and low employee turnover

§  Create Team cohesiveness

§  Achieve High employee morale

§  Be a Strong company with complete organizational alignment towards goal achievement

In today’s word of global work places, mergers and acquisitions, rapid change, defining, creating and maintaining a Culture across the organizations that constantly drives the enterprises to success, is indeed a challenge and is most often neglected.

Very often the mergers and acquisitions are either not pursued or rejected at the advanced stages just because the organizations discover that the cultures do not match! There are also examples of lack of cultural fit has resulted in confusion and failure of merged entities. It is very important to consider the nuances of the country specific, race specific and regional specific cultures when we evaluate the case for mergers, acquisitions joint ventures, strategic partnerships and the like.

Analysis of black-box conversations of a number of air-crashes has revealed that national culture has been  a contributory factor in analyses of air crashes. In one accident, the unwillingness/reluctance of junior crew  to speak up to alert the captain to a critical fuel condition was identified, along with the crew's acceptance of long delays from air traffic control.  

Replacing the crew with those from the countries which have informal relationships with superiors or orienting them with the need to be more proactive in inter level relationships and team work has led to dramatic reduction in the possibility of air crashes.

To Transform an Organization, you must first start by changing its Culture..

                                  

                                                        Factors affecting the Organisational Culture..

How is an Organizational culture established or changed in an Organization?

When an Organization is not having a strong culture or is facing limitation in moral or performance, it may be imperative to look at the current organizational culture, identify the weaknesses and area of change and take steps to create a clearly identified, desired culture that would foster excellence and a change of outlook.

This could be done through employee surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, customer surveys where appropriate, and other internal research, to further identify areas that require change.

Formulate a clear strategic vision . In order to make a cultural change effective, a clear vision of the firm’s new strategy, shared values and behaviour is needed. This vision provides the intention and direction for the culture change (Cummings & Worley).

Cummings & Worley gave the following six guidelines for cultural change.

1.      Display Top Management commitment & lead by example.

2.      Identify and appoint change agents with strong communication and interpersonal skills. These individual should be catalysts, not dictators.

3.     Implement the change at the highest level to reflect the seriousness of the intent and also to fine tune the process.

4.     Create systems, processes, symbols, tenets, visual depictions, reward systems and communication procedures and activities to carry the change forward. These should motivate the employees to embrace the desired culture and establish the same across the organization..

5.     Select and socialize newcomers and terminate. Training should be provided to all employees to understand the new processes, expectations and systems.

6.     Develop ethical and legal sensitivity. Changes in culture can lead to tensions between organizational and individual interests, which can result in ethical and legal problems for practitioners

While Managers and Key employees could act as change agents, outside consultants may also be useful in facilitating the change process and providing employee training. Change of culture in the organizations is very important and inevitable. Culture innovations entails introducing something new and substantially different from what prevails in existing cultures.

The Consultants could help the organizations in continuously reinventing themselves by Cultural innovations that continue to keep the employees glued to the organization like a clan and perform strongly in line with the vision of the organization.

(Source Wikipedia )

The result of the exercise could be a vibrant and dynamic culture that leads the organization towards glory.

 While Organizational culture is an important part of a successful and continued existence of an organization, thriving organizations not only keep reinventing and adapting themselves but also carry on effective implementation of the process that internalizes and imbibes the employees with a strong and ethical performance driven culture leading to excellence.