How You Impact Your Organization’s Culture

Bob moved to a new company, and it wasn’t too many days before he was invited to a meeting. The meeting announcement he received said that the meeting started at 9 am in room 105. At 8:55 he walked into an empty room. Frantic he went back to his computer to see if he had the details right. He checked and double checked and realized he was right – 9 am, room 105.

As he briskly walked back to the meeting room he was puzzled. He thought, “Why was the room empty, when it is almost time for the meeting to start?” He walked in at 9:02 and still no one was there. He sat there for a couple of minutes when he saw someone he recognized – who also was on the invitee list – walking by the door. Bob asked if the meeting was still on and if it was still for 9 am? Susan replied that the meeting was on, that Bob was in the right place and that “meetings never start on time here.” Sure enough, about 9:15 everyone, including Susan, arrived and the meeting got started.

That night Bob told his wife the story and related how different this was from his last company. “There, everyone was there five minutes early, because we always started on time.”

Bob is learning – first hand – about his new organizational culture – one quite different from what he is used to.

What is it?

Organizational culture – it’s something we don’t usually talk about, but we feel everyday. A culture is defined by what is expected of people and what is valued. It defines the norms of behavior and “how things are done” in an organization – whether that organization is a family, a team or a business.

To be successful in any setting it is important to understand the culture – this understanding allows us to navigate successfully through our day and be productive. Culture is important then because it defines the boundaries of behavior and performance, which allow us to produce rather than discuss “how” to do everything – it becomes a short hand way to get things done.

Cultures often develop from people’s early experiences in an organization and over time these experiences become the unspoken “rules of the road.” This is natural and usually just fine, except that sometimes what naturally develops or evolves isn’t exactly what we might want those “rules” to be. While they may have worked in the past, now they no longer serve the organization very well.

What now?

Since these rules develop gradually and become deeply engrained, what do we do if we want to change them?

In most organizations, if this question is asked at all, the answer would be to point to senior management. After all, they are those in charge of the organization – if something about the culture is holding the organization back, they should be responsible for fixing it.