Making Way For Positive Organization Culture
Organizations
are made of people who bring in their bundle of emotions, egos and complex
personalities. Organization culture is the sum of all these personalities which
creates a common ideology or identity for the organization. Some aspects of
organization culture get created along the way, while most aspects are evolved
by the founders of the organization.
Why is it necessary to understand and study organization culture? Culture
influences people in good and bad ways. Culture creates the identity for the
organization. Vendors, customers, employees and other external agencies factor
in the organization culture when they make their business decisions.
Organization culture helps the company to relate to external entities. It helps
the company to gear up for competition. Potential business partners study the
organization culture before making any strategic moves. Even valuation of
business is influenced by the organization culture.
Organization culture is the confluence of various ideologies, beliefs,
languages, and customs, and these collectively form guidelines for conformed
behavior. All implicit and explicit behaviors form the foundation for
organization culture.
To observe the culture of an organization, study the visible signals. For
instance, do most people of the organization belong to a particular race or
religion? What are the merits and awards instituted in the company? What is the
value system that is strongly carried out by members of the organization?
Apart from the visible signs, organization culture can also be seen in the value
system instilled by the founder members of the organization. Senior management
is responsible for creating a viable organization culture that suits the needs
of the business and sends a strong message to outsiders. Hence certain values
are enforced by seniors by setting examples and by propagating with the help of
symbolic behaviors. This has a trickle-down effect in the organization and gets
carried out to the grass root level.
Sometimes organization culture shapes itself with the entry of new employees.
Mindsets, values and beliefs get redefined and a new form of organization
culture emerges. Let me explain this metaphorically. If you take a bottle filled
with small balls of a particular shape, you will find that they fit into every
nook and corner inside the bottle. Now add some more balls of varying shapes and
sizes and shake the bottle. If you shake slowly, not much will change. But if
you give the bottle a vigorous shake, you will find that all the balls (old and
new) have realigned themselves. In a way, the organization is like this bottle
of odd shaped balls.
The question one needs to ask is how should organization culture be controlled?
The organization culture needs change if there is an influx of bad organization
behavior or a measured erosion of organization values. There cannot be a culture
change without the support of top management. Every department has to make a
conscious effort to manage the change process. Specific steps must be
incorporated in the change plan with intermediate feedback mechanisms. Cultural
change takes a long period of time and its effects are seen over much longer
periods. Hence it must be ensured that the cultural change process is proactive
and continual.
