Organization culture is a system of shared assumptions, norms, values, and beliefs, which govern how people behave in organizations. These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs. The beliefs, ideologies, and philosophies of an organization form its culture. Culture includes an organization’s shared expectations, experiences, attitudes, customs, and written and unwritten rules. If your organization culture is well-defined, it can clearly guide your recruitment and hiring strategy as well.

Is your organization culture accidental or intentional?

Creating the right culture for an organization is a key component for long-term success. You can decide what kind of culture you want. Then, clearly define it at the behavioral level. Managers can then role model it by living the behaviors. Provide coaching to help people align with the culture values. Don’t tolerate employees who violate them. When you see people acting contrary to the culture’s values, take swift action. You know you’re living the values when you become willing to fire someone over repeated values violations.

If asked your employees to define your organization’s culture in five words, would their lists be consistent?

In organizations where corporate values are merely words on the website, the culture tends to be experienced differently, depending on the role and level of the person. If your employees can’t name the core values that drive the culture, how can they collectively live them?

An organization’s culture continuously aligns and regulates the employee’s values, beliefs and behaviors in support of the business strategy. Organizations that are purposeful about this culture / business strategy dynamic typically outperform their competition that lack focus in this area. Culture will also help you attract and retain the right talent. It will help create an environment for high employee engagement.

Here are some guiding principles for creating a strong organization culture:

  • Senior leadership - creates the culture, with the CEO leading the way. Senior manager’s actions are watched, analyzed and emulated throughout the organization.
  • Organization narrative – consists of the purpose, vision, mission and values statement. Your organization narrative is the shared story about why your company exists and where it’s going. It’s something that bands your people together towards a common goal, as it outlines your shared vision for the future.
  • Customer focused – invest in customer research in order to better understand market trends, set customer policies, drive new product development and inform the sales process.
  • Employee driven - management decisions need to focus on empowering the employee to create value.
  • Shareholder focus - creating shareholder value will also drive value to customers and employees. Management decisions support quarterly earnings goals and annual shareholder ROI.
  • Business Strategy - Culture is what brings your business strategy to life. As your company grows and evolves, your culture needs to evolve with it. Identify current and future obstacles to success.

Leave a Reply

Previous Next
This website uses cookies. By using this website you consent to our use of these cookies. For more information visit our Cookie Policy.