How Transparent is Your Culture?
Monday, February 16th, 2009
What is the essence of an organization’s culture? What makes it work? For some time now I’ve had this image in my mind – it’s the purest description of Organizational Culture I’ve been able to think of . It has been said before that organizations with a strong culture are those in which the staff respond to stimulus because of their alignment to organizational values. Companies like Nike, Southwest Airlines, Apple, Google – they all have what most would describe as a strong culture.
I would argue that culture goes beyond simply aligning the employees around a set of organizational values. I would say that strong cultures have very defined and distinct components around three broad areas:
Purpose – This is a much better word than “values.” Purpose defines a broad sense of one’s aim, intention, role, determination and resolve. Simply aligning people around a set of values will not get you results. Purpose provides people – in this case employees and customers - the ability to link cause and effect to the achievement of a goal in a given system. Purpose is what guides decision-making in choosing appropriate actions within a range of strategies based on varying degrees of abiguityof knowledge that creates a context for action. More simply put – purpose allows people to change the conditions in an environment in order to make it better. This is a complex yet powerful concept.
Alignment - This goes well beyond organizational structure. Alignment is the adjustment of an object or activity in relation to other objects or activities. It goes much deeper than the ”structure” an organization’s decision-making takes. In this context, alignment refers not just to the people but also the activities and the information. When combined with a common purpose - employees will re-orient their position, activities and behaviors in order to achieve the desired results. Too many have confused “command and control” with alignment. Go to any successful restaurant and walk into the kitchen. A well-aligned kitchen means that everyone knows precisely their necessary activity, and everyone has the ”information” to pull all the dishes together in the most efficient manner.
Empowerment - This is the last piece to the puzzle. Empowerment provides people with information and resources to make decisions and take action. This is also where individuals take initiative to improve how they currently do their work in an effort to seek a more effective and more efficient method. It is also where individuals learn that they are a part of the continuous process where change is never ending, and change is self-initiated. Empowerment is also where your employees gain (or enhance) a positive self image. Empowerment is also where your employees identify, deal with and overcome barriers; this increases their ability to use discreet thinking to sort out right from wrong.
Three simple words to describe a complex, dynamic, yet difficult state to achieve. Everything that’s part of your culture exists within these three simple areas. What I do know is that achieving results like the companies mentioned - is not an easy task. It takes never-ending faith, focus and effort – not just by you the CEO, but by everyone in the organization. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it or not.
