Gaining
And Maintaining A Highly Productive Organization Culture
This
printable personal coaching session will give
you some insights into the attributes of a healthy organization culture.
It provides you with a simple assessment tool for easily getting feedback about
your organization's culture from your managers, staff, suppliers, and customers.
Establishing or changing your organizations culture calls for serious and diligently planning and work. Not unlike individuals, organizations have personalities. Most of us have observed organizations we would call casual, energetic, even crazy as well as organizations that are formal, slow-moving and serious in nature. What creates these differences social scientists call an organization's culture. In changing an organizations culture with good purpose in mind, a leader must first have a clear vision of what the organization can and should look like functionally in the future. Anthony Robbins has captured the importance of this. "The people who shape our lives and our cultures have the ability to communicate a vision or a quest or a joy or a mission."
When people elect to work within an organizational culture, they have elected to choose a way of life during their work day. Unfortunately, this choice is often unconscious or uninformed. If the norms and values of the organization’s culture battle or conflict among themselves or with people’s personal life and family culture, conflicts and reduced productivity automatically occur.
Because every organization culture has its own way of doing business and treating people, it is always best to hire and be hired into an organizational culture that is mostly congruent and not conflictive with your personal and family culture... that is, unless you have the desire to “shift” and accommodate to the company’s culture without resisting and resenting it.
A vital personal and organizational issue today is integrity and ethics. There is a growing divide between organizational cultures that support high integrity and ethical conduct and those that don’t. Do you focus on the “high moral road” and value a life and family of high integrity and ethical conduct? If so, you will wilt and become dysfunctional in an organizational culture where people “talk a good talk” but do not “walk the talk”.
Everyone involved within an organization needs to recognize that an organization’s culture trends to take on a life of its own. Customs and rituals develop that perpetuate a company’s governing operating values and push people to align with them. Not all cultural traditions are positive. In some organizations, negative customs perpetuate and produce unhappy, conflictive and dysfunctional states of affairs. Simple behavioral examples of such norms are “complaining” or “blaming”.
You can use the assessment below to think through the values and norms that exist, or you wish existed, in your present organization or in an organization you are thinking about joining. It focuses on key elements of an organization's culture along with some “talking or thinking points”. You will find my Assessment of Existing and Desired Norms and Values for an Organization’s Culture helpful for planning to re shape the cultural norms of the organization. Also for determining if an organization you are looking to join has the right cultural norms to support you motivationally and provide a "playing field" that will contribute to the enhancement of your career.
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Company
Which formal and informal norms and values below are perceived to be present or desired? To what degree? How can you gain and maintain those that are desired and help one another be mutually accountable for honoring them?
Achievement Rewards – People’s accomplishments are acknowledged, regarded, praised and reinforced based on their true ability and contribution. This, as against other, political or less fair reasons.
Degree Of Structure – Positions are defined, including performance standards, and people are operating within their own area of responsibility through policies and procedures. This, as against people having a high degree of autonomy to informally handle issues and opportunities and also engage relevantly in other areas of the organization’s work.
Emotional Support – Managers show a genuine interest in the well-being of staff members by seeking out and responding to their concerns. This, as against people feeling they are not receiving the emotional support they want and deserve.
Interpersonal Communication – People maintain 360 degree open, direct and congruent communication of suggestions, concerns and questions. This, as against withholding, colluding, and hiding agendas.
Mutual Accountability – Managers and staff members regularly participate in organization-wide mutual accountability and integrity check sessions focused on their contribution to, and achievement of, the organization’s core governing operating values, performance goals, and vision and mission. This, as against people doing their own thing and following their own interests without serious regard for relevant work and contributions.
Opportunities For Growth – People are encouraged to develop their skills through education and training opportunities and to take on new responsibilities. This, as against a focus exclusively on staff members handling their present positions competently.
Sociability – People’s involvement with one another on a personal level is desired and encouraged. This as against the desire for limiting interaction to tasks related to their position and the productivity and output goals to be achieved for the organization and its customers.
Power Distribution And Work-style Autonomy - People have freedom, authority and responsibility to make appropriate decisions themselves related to the positions they fill. This against a decision power distance between people and positions at different levels within the organization with demands to report, justify actions and gain permission from higher management.
Tolerance For Change – Relevant, productivity-enhancing change is expected and welcomed. This, as against holding to tradition, predictability, and focusing on stability.
Tolerance For Conflict – People demonstrate that disagreement is not necessarily a sign of disloyalty and the management of conflict is compatible with people’s styles. This, as against organizational harmony itself being stressed at the cost of open, honest and congruent interpersonal communication and problem solving.
Tolerance For Risk – People are encouraged to take well-reasoned chances. This, as against avoiding risks.
Empowering After Thoughts
“Acquired knowledge is potential power. Only acquired knowledge diligently applied is empowering.”
Millard MacAdam
I
urge you to invest some time in reflectively thinking about what you have read
and learned from this Tactical Tip.
On a pad of paper, or in your personal growth journal, write to these three questions.