Essentials of a Strong Culture

Organizational culture is defined by former MIT professor Ed Schein as the set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a group holds that determines how it perceives, thinks about and reacts to its environment. In other words, it determines how we dress, speak, act, interact and perform our jobs. It is often the glue that holds employees to the mission and the goals of the organization.

Peter Drucker has been attributed with saying, "culture eats strategy for breakfast," but it was Mark Fields, CEO at Ford who made the slogan popular in 2006. 

There are 3 levels of organizational culture:

1. Visible Artifacts - these are the acronyms and vocabulary your organization uses, the uniforms or manner of dress that is allowed/required, your org chart, the layout and vibe of the office, the myths and stories about the organization that are repeated formally and informally, and observable rituals and ceremonies, both formal and informal.

2. Espoused vs. Enacted Values - these are the values we say are important. Words and phrases like integrity, trust, do it right the first time, always good ships, etc. Unfortunately, sometimes the espoused values conflict with enacted values or actual behavior. It's fine to have integrity on a plaque or on the first page of the employee handbook, but if the owner or a manager frequently acts in observable ways that conflict with that (such as frequently lying to customers, suppliers or employees), then the culture is going to be defined by the enacted values, not the espoused values. Enacted values are essentially defined by what managers choose to reward, condone and condemn.

3. Basic Underlying Assumptions - these are values that are taken for granted over time. These are more deeply held beliefs that employees have about their company and are the most resistant to change.

Is your culture helping you achieve your goals or is it hindering it? Can you define your culture and do your employees agree with your assumptions about what your culture really is? Is the culture that got you where you are the same culture that's going to get you where you want to go?

I once worked with a company that reached a stage where it determined it needed to significantly change its culture to achieve its next growth phase. It had grown from 4 employees to 400 as basically an adhocracy (adaptable, creative, agile, decentralized, externally focused and flexible). Many of its managers were quite entrepreneurial and had been hired because they were. But executives felt that in order to grow the company to the next level it needed to become more of a hierarchy (internally focused with more formalized and rigid systems and controls). This culture shift resulted in more than a little turbulence over several years and cost the company quite a few of its long-term, loyal employees, but the shift did position the company to achieve remarkable growth and reach the goals of the owners, which ultimately included selling the company at the right time.

There's a lot more involved in culture change than buying some tee shirts and adopting a new slogan. So if you decide you want to investigate your organization's culture, how it is helping and/or hurting, contact a professional who understands organizational behavior and how to change not only artifacts, but systematically resetting those basic underlying assumptions.