Organization Culture

Ever wonder what makes a strong and winning culture? Every culture is unique on its own, having a multitude of factors in enabling those cultures. However, we at Strengthscape, have noted 6 remarkably essential components of a strong and winning organizational culture. Working with the following 6 components can be your stepping stones for building a strong and winning culture. 

1. Vision & Mission: The first step to a great culture is its vision and mission statements. These simple yet powerful statements are the torchbearer of an organization’s values and help them with its purpose which in turn, guide employees to take day to day decisions. When they are prominently demonstrated in every interaction of the company and its employees, it helps to orient customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders and create a brand for the organization
2. Core Values: Once the vision and mission are in place, the next step is to look for the core values. Where your vision and mission help you in articulating the purpose, core values help you set guidelines on the behaviors and mindsets which needs to be demonstrated to achieve the vision. Having well-defined values which are clearly communicated to all employees create a standardized language and drives the organization to speak same language both internally and externally
3. Actions: With well-defined values for your mission statement, it is important that a specific action plan is implemented. If your organization believes that people are the greatest assets, then make them feel that they are valuable by investing on their learning and development or if your organization values excellent client service, then take actions to make sure each client no matter how big or small are served with excellence. Have a reward mechanism in place that can reinforce the expected behaviors and actions. Organizational values must be reinforced in the performance appraisals, business review criteria and baked into employee’s day to day operation
4. Employees: Culture building does not happen without employees who either share the same values or have the willingness and ability to embrace those values. And this is the reason why best organizations of the world have strict recruitment policies. They look for people who are not only most talented but also fit well with the organization’s existing culture. One research suggests that applicants who were found culturally fit would accept a 7% lower salary, and departments with cultural alignment had 30% less turnover. Hence, candidates prefer to work with organizations that are aligned to their personal values, existing employees stick with cultures they like, and by having the right “culture carriers” on board, reinforces the culture an organization already has
5. Storytelling: Every organization has a unique history — a unique story to tell. And the ability to excavate that history and craft it into a story is a core component of building a strong and winning organizational culture. The elements of this story can be formal or informal, yet they become more compelling when it is identified well, shaped and communicated as a part of the ongoing culture
6. Environment: Ever wonder why some organizations do not have separate offices with soundproof doors? Or why giant financial firms cluster in London and New York? Or why Google’s culture is so welcoming of the millennials. There are multitudes of answers to that; however, one simple answer is that environment shapes culture. Having an open workspace is conceived to have certain office behaviors, like collaboration. Regional cultures play a pivotal role in impacting the culture of the organization – it can ether reinforce or can be contradicting. Be it geographical, architectural, or aesthetical designs of a company, it has an impact on values and behaviors of the employees

As mentioned earlier, there is plethora of factors that influences your culture however, these six factors or components lay the foundation for shaping a new corporate culture and help promote organizational development.

Each employee has a part to play in the time spent and the process of changing organizational culture, however by the day’s end, leaders are the ones who can have the deciding moments; the decisions they make cause a ripple effect on employee engagement, recruitment, and performance that intensely impacts an organization’s performance.  

The greatest differentiator between the winners and the remainder of the candidates is employees’ trust in senior administration. By setting up the mission an association and enabling employees to accomplish that mission, leadership forms the foundation of organization culture and plays a significant job in transforming it when it should be changed. It’s one thing to talk about it. It’s something else to see it in action. 

Changing Organizational Culture through Leadership

Culture is made up of following three layers: 

• Behavior, policies, systems and processes encompassing the way things are done 
• Goals, values, ideals and aspirations set by leadership 
• Fundamental assumptions that guide behavior  

With regards to driving organizational change, leaders play an important role in utilizing their behavior by establishing the tone for what’s acceptable inside a company. The minute you found an organization, culture comes into the discussion. In the beginning periods, you’re concentrating on building a core team and taking what you value and applying that to your employing techniques. As you develop from those beginning periods, leaders have a duty to help define, instruct, live, measure, and reward the culture they need to build.”  

As a business develops, it’s up to the founders and CEOs to show association between the organization’s beliefs and the practices that the administration team reinforces while changing corporate culture. 

Changing organizational culture with focus

As indicated by the Harvard Business Review, over 70% of change efforts fall flat. So, what’s a leader to do when the chances are against you? The appropriate response is focus. As leaders, employees, and managers, we have such huge numbers of everyday responsibilities that it’s basically not practical to attempt to change one or two behaviors at a time. Focus is the primary piece, and at exactly that point would you be able to make sense of which points of change will be the most beneficial for a company. 

Leaders should be extremely mindful of when efforts in changing corporate culture are going amiss or not turning out to be what they need them to be. They should be observant because they have the ability to help vital changes to recover the culture back or improve it. Empathy, listening, communicating, and transparency are all significant leadership attributes, however leaders alone can’t change or fix a culture or cause it to perform at its highest potential. It’s binding on everybody inside a company, not simply leaders and managers, to take responsibility for company culture and make it what they want. 

As a leader, it’s not your business to fix everything and get the awards — you must be intentional about changing company culture and the practices you need to see and enable your team to live and participate in the way of culture as a group.