Culture Shift

Organizational culture is an idea in the field of Organizational studies and management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural values) of an organization. It has been defined as "the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization. (Wikipedia)

For a long time, I've been a huge proponent of culture being created in any organization from the bottom-up. Ultimately, culture is determined by the people doing the real work every day. I've never been big on the culture being defined by a bunch of guys in suits who don't mingle much with the people who actually do the work. Only executives defining the corporate culture is laughable. They can have input on targets but don't expect the employees to embrace the new culture if the employees themselves haven't had a say in how it goes.

Look, the truth is, it's the masses (the worker bees) that make the culture anyway not the small amount of top level execs, so tap the front-line for culture shifting ideas. There will be a better "buy-in" to any new culture-shifting program if it comes from the people that culture affects the most. In fact, with so many Gen Y's coming on-board, every organization had better re-think their culture and get input from the people who will make up a large portion of the workforce shortly.

I was working with a client recently who was having some difficulty in past with their "safety" culture. Their solution was to institute an "Accountability Committee" made up of front-line workers who were able to challenge anyone in the company - right on up to the CEO - to make sure they had followed through with their commitments to safety improvement. If anyone didn't, the Accountability Committee would encourage the laggards to get with it before the quarterly report card was filed. The Accountability Committee is like an internal police force that, when you think about it, should be following everyone around all day to make sure we all do what we say we're going to do. It would sure keep a lot of empty promises from being made.

An idea like this could work, with a little tweaking, to really make a difference in culture.

Oh, and one last thing, when you're trying to measure what culture your organization has now, find out what kind of a reputation your company has outside of the company walls. Do informal interviews with real people outside of the company, real customers, real suppliers and people who were turned down for jobs to get their take on what you do and how you do it. That should open your eyes quite a bit to what's happening behind the walls.