Little Things Count When Shaping Job Culture
A positive, supportive culture is critical in achieving organizational goals. And we all individually, as employees or managers, affect and shape the culture in which we work.
That is true in how we greet each other--or how we don’t greet each other. We see it in how we listen--or don’t listen--to each other when we are trying to work through our to-do lists. It is shown in how much patience we have--or don’t have--when we are tired from an ever-growing workload and a colleague makes an honest mistake.
In all of these cases, our actions affect the set of values, norms and beliefs that guide behavior.
Clearly, we need to continually assess our routine business activities for opportunities to nurture the organizational culture and not take our culture for granted.
There are lots of ways to do that. Instead of having employees pick up their paychecks from payroll, wouldn’t it be great for managers, if not senior executives, to visit and thank each employee on a regular basis as they distribute the paychecks?
When conducting an employee performance review, view the process as a development opportunity and not just another administrative task. Look for projects to help your employees enhance their skills. Constantly involve employees in your work, even in cases when it would be easier just to do the work yourself.
And when filling a vacancy, look beyond the resume. Spend the extra time and effort to better evaluate a potential employee’s “fit” with the organization’s culture.
Unfortunately, we are not always as sensitive as we should be to the effect of our actions on an organization’s culture. For example, in our quest to achieve results or save time, we focus on efficiency. In doing so, we often lose sight of the contradictory signals that we are giving about what we value.
To be efficient, we create thick handbooks detailing employee responsibilities and rules. But is it effective or--even worse--counterproductive? Imagine that you recently joined a company where you were told about the caring, family-like environment.
Yet on your first day on the job, everyone seems too busy to help you get oriented. Instead of people taking time to familiarize you with your responsibilities and the company, you are handed a fat handbook and papers concerning your job. This environment does not reflect the caring, family-like values you expected. You begin to fear that this too-busy behavior is the norm.
Spending time in “inefficient” ways such as welcoming or orienting new employees is costly. But the costs to the culture and--as a result--the organization are far higher if we do not make such “inefficient” expenditures. Wouldn’t it be better to streamline the employee handbook and communicate the handful of core organizational values that guide behavior through periodic discussions, a clear organizational mission and modeling consistent everyday behavior that “walks the talk”?
Nurturing and shaping an organization’s culture also involves “out of character” actions that extend and reinforce our concept of key values and often become part of the company lore. For example, the owner of several appliance stores changes into a clown costume and walks through his stores passing out candy and sharing jokes with employees. Why? To reinforce that it is important to have fun at work and take risks.
A product development executive for an electronic components company sees an employee struggling with boxes on the loading dock to meet a shipping deadline. Despite being dressed in her business suit, she immediately steps in and helps load the boxes. Why? The employee needed help and the organization values teamwork at all levels and across the organization.
The new CEO of a staid and conservative publishing company walks into the room and shocks his subordinates: He isn’t wearing a necktie. Why? He wants to reinforce his message on important values: Let’s be open and not rigid; good results and how we work are important, not formal appearance.
We all influence and affect our organization’s culture. Nurturing and shaping a culture is more fun and easier than fixing one. Let’s take a hard look at how we work and how we work together.
Let’s review our procedures and elevate our sensitivity in how we communicate and respond to each other. Let’s streamline our employee manuals while reinforcing organizational values by what we do and how we work.
Culture is important and our culture is us.
Gary Izumo is an instructor in the Moorpark College business department and has managed his own consulting practice. He is a former McKinsey & Co. consultant and practice leader for the Strategic Management Consulting Practice of Price Waterhouse.
