Culture

What is it?

Investopedia.com says “Corporate culture is the personality of an organization.”

Fair enough.

We all know that someone cannot simply declare their personality. It’s something we sense about them. So when a leader talks about their organization’s culture, they can only know their own perception. To that leader it may seem fun, friendly, inclusive and safe. But, it’s always possible that others may see it in less rosy terms. The point is that different people can have a different perception.

Here’s a quick example. One person may find it wonderfully inclusive that the team goes out for supper together every Wednesday. Another person may feel that the team is stealing time away from his family. Neither person is right or wrong. And this doesn’t make the culture good or bad. Perception matters.

If culture is based on perception, then it’s reasonable to say that every organization has a culture. It doesn’t need to be formally defined by management. It simply … exists.

And it’s also reasonable to say that there are likely many different cultural perceptions across an organization based on an individual’s work environment. As an illustration, perhaps a person who works in Sales might perceive it as disfunctional because it’s competitive and non-cooperative. This person isn’t able to produce their best results in that type of environment. If that same person transferred to, say, Operations they might perceive this new environment as being friendly and inclusive. It truly has a different personality. And it’s a more natural fit for their values and preferences. In this particular culture, they can produce their best results.

So how do these multiple cultures happen?

Think ‘top-down’. The culture at the top often reflects the executive leader’s personality. Maybe they’re fun-loving. Or maybe they’re no-nonsense and results-focused. No matter what the leader might say they want their culture to embody, the leader’s true values usually emerge and have a huge impact.

However.

As that top-level culture flows down into the organization, each leader at each subsequent level has the ability to put their stamp on this culture. They might, for instance, choose to protect their team from certain perceived disfunctions. Or the opposite – maybe that subordinate leader creates disfunctions that don’t exist elsewhere.

Are there some corporate cultures that are so bad that everyone would agree it’s terrible? Probably. But, who knows? You might find someone who thrives in a sarcastic, micro-managed environment. Most of us wouldn’t hang around very long. But it’s not for us to judge what others might like.

Ideally, the organization provides a great culture for everyone, from the top to the bottom. But consistency at every level, across every unit, is never guaranteed.

Strategically, a lack of consistency can be harmful. Solving that problem brings us to the next key point.

There are two fundamentally different ways of considering ‘culture’.

So far, we’ve mostly been talking about what we refer to as the ‘social culture’. This is what an employee might describe if they’re asked “What’s it like to work there?” They will probably use personality-driven words like ‘friendly’, ‘inclusive’, ‘interesting’ ‘boring’, ‘chaotic’, or a thousand other descriptors.

These descriptions represent the leader-driven personality where any individual’s perception and opinion can vary depending on whether it aligns with their own needs.

But there’s also a ‘performance culture‘. This is what gets described when an outsider asks (ideally) “What makes you guys so successful?”

This, now, is where the employee would probably respond with process-driven words like ‘focused’, ‘transparent’, ‘trusting’, ‘agile’, and so on.

This performance culture is clearly separate from the social culture. You can have a ‘friendly and inclusive’ social culture that’s highly successful. Or not. And you can have a ‘competitive, results-oriented’ social culture that’s highly successful. Or not. Any type of social culture can be successful. Or not.

The key is to build a performance culture that’s consistent across the organization; one that is separate from, and will work alongside, any social culture.

The social culture may determine whether you feel happy working in a particular organization (or team). But it rarely determines whether that organization (or team) will exhibit long-term success. That’s the performance culture.

And it can be intentionally crafted.

As a practical matter, TRM will mostly ignore the social culture. The reason is simple. TRM works with any social culture – as long as it’s not completely disfunctional. And since we’re confident that you aren’t the type of leader who would create a completely disfunctional team, we’ll stay out of it. We trust that you, the leader, can best determine the values that you want your social culture to embody. And it really doesn’t matter to us.

Our role is to show you how to build a highly-effective performance culture to go along with it.