‘When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with the creatures of logic, but creature of emotions’ – Dale Carnegie
We as a global society have emerged and transformed dramatically over the last decades or so, we have gone for adaptation over and over with the increase in technological advancement and research related to it and how to make our lives at ease with a balance of work. But just like the foundation of our survival has been culture, it is very important that we look after the company culture as it is what keeps it fueling the company and what attracts the consumer to rely upon the company and also which keeps the employee intact with the company. The key to a successful organization is to have a strong culture and widely shared set of beliefs that are supported by strategy and structure. When a company has a strong culture, it keeps the knowhow on how to handle the top management and their needs in any situation, and also the reward/punishment associated with it.
When walking into the organization, an organization’s customs, traditions, rituals, behavioural norms, are the visible manifestation of its culture.
Company culture sets the context for everything an organization does though it is an undefined aspect of the organization. This culture consists of beliefs and a value system that is established by the leaders and then communicated top-down approach to reinforce, ultimately shaping employee perception, behaviour and their understanding of their dimension of work. A strong culture can bring benefits such as enhanced trust and cooperation, less disagreements and effective decision making, and also willingness to work for the company. It acts as a control mechanism which defines a strong sense of identification with and within the organization. Conversely, an ineffective and disorientated culture can bring down the organization to name a few, leading to low turnover, poor customer relation, and low profits.
It all depends upon the adaptability with the environment, human nature, appreciation, appropriate emotions and effectiveness. Few factors could be – value related to outcome orientation, people orientation/team orientation, stability, innovation etc.
It shall be necessary for the founders to have a significant impact on an organization’s culture. They shall lay down the value blueprint from the beginning like sowing the seed then nourishing it, eventually knowing that it’s going to be fruitful. But over time what’s important is sustaining the culture and not losing it in the world of profit, as it is the culture which will define the attitude towards the ever-evolving marketplace. Be it social culture, material culture or the ideologies related to it within the organization. It has been realized with a lot of company going into heft that it’s not the macro part but the micro part, on how the organization is working on a discrete/stage level of every wing of it like looking into each piece of organization’s vision and mission and the values associated to it, maybe by conducting a cultural fit interview and later on discussing about the gaps with the employees then filling the very gaps with proper measures. It is very important that even after the surveillance on the very topic, it is crucial to have the communication within the organization to have transparency and to have a metric to measure the same, by having a cultural audit or maybe a 360-degree feedback, which will ultimately wash out the cultural inconsistency.
Talking about the modern era, where we have many discords. Diversity and inclusion have never been more important to emphasize than today. What we have witnessed is racial and social injustice within the organization has continued to plague the community overall and divide the global society. In response, the leaders need to strengthen their role as influencers of their organizational culture.
What we need to tackle the problem, is a well-defined inclusive and positive corporate culture which will act as a glue to bind the organization and its employees and it obviously needs extra attention. A pre 2020 survey stated that almost 30% of the employees were already concerned about the possibility when asked about how likely they feel it is that their organizations’ leadership will be accused of significant wrongdoing, sexual harassment or even racist behavior, endangering health or financial wrongdoings. Now, we have come a long way from just office perks and amenities to having an environment of being rational towards each other, to creating an opportunity to promote personal connection, and to follow the culture with integrity and not just to ‘set it & forget it’. To which we all know is intrinsic to the organization and to oneself because ‘what’s good for all of us, is good for each of us.’
During the ongoing pandemic, we realized that we need to be more extroverted towards the integrity of the organization and the leaders associated with and guess what we did, and the outcome was highly appreciable. From in-office culture to work from home culture, employees have shown drastic change in their behaviour towards the organization and to each other. Apart from the work, the zoom meetings conducted also included topics about well-being of each other, family responsibility, employees/employer benefits, to talk about the leadership role, as this harsh time literally showed us the way to tackle is through cooperation and by listening to everyone, more so, they even talked about the external environment like new ways of working, flexibility of processes and ability to execute strategy despite market changes. It gave the opportunity to be more of a cross culture and to learn from each other and also to value it.
I think in the long run, we have to start overlooking towards EQ more than IQ, studies have shown that the former has been more responsible towards the culture enhancement and efficiency of the organization as it creates a more personal connection with the people working around us, majorly it creates a sense of trust and reliability to the immediate colleague and to the organization, ultimately reducing the wrongdoing which were stated above.
I would like to conclude by saying that, even though we have come a far way and have seen restructuring in the way an organization work or how it should be done, but to the intrinsic part is that culture is what ultimately defines us and tells us how we are, it’s the soul to every being, be it organization or just you and me. I think it’s fair to say that, ‘we celebrate the commonality of major differences, and we live in a state of belongingness rather than blood’.
Sento 