THE CULTURE TRAP

Values, Principles, Core Competencies, Corporate Culture, Millennial Leadership...etc. are just a few of a whole bunch of organizational phenomena that have been commercialized, and to some extend misunderstood and abused, to meet today’s rise of millenials. What is culture? And why has it become an obsession for so many organizations across the globe?

Let’s take a look at a couple of definitions of Culture given by some of the gurus in the realm of organizational culture: According to Geert Hofstede, Culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another”. As for Edgar Schein, he defines culture as  “A pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration”.

We can safely extract from both definitions, as well as many others, that culture is a manifestation of the accumulated learning and conditioning within a group.  “Culture”, simply put, is who a group “is” and what they believe in! It most certainly is NOT who they “ought” to be and “should” believe in! 

 If you think you can hire a Culture or Talent Management expert to come in and change your culture, your identity, and recondition your entire group’s beliefs, then think again! You simply cannot change who and what you are. Your best bet for making such a drastic change would be if you hired a dedicated, full time, world-class behavioral therapist for each and every one of your people over the course of a couple of decades (considering they all WANT to change, that is), then crossing your fingers and hoping for the best...  

But what do you really want? When you decided, as a leader, that you SHOULD build a culture of “openness, transparency, and creativity” for example, where did these desired traits stem from? Was it because your competitor (who might happen to be more successful than you are) has them? Or did you read a book about a successful company who had those values, and all you’re doing is trying to mimic them? Or perhaps you just want what you currently don’t have?

Let’s assume you want a culture that boasts “creativity” as a driving principle. Ask yourself:

• Am I creative myself?
• Do I embrace others' creativity and praise them for their creative contribution? 
• Do I truly believe that “creativity” is a key ingredient that will lead to the ultimate success of my business?
• Do I adequately use creativity as a key assessment criteria  when making hiring decisions?

If the answers to the above questions are mostly NO, then Creativity is simply not part of who you are or how you do things! That’s not a bad thing, nor is it a good thing, its simply WHO YOU ARE! Embrace it!

Understanding your identity and strengths then capitalizing on them through culture shaping and integration is exactly what you should be doing, rather than constantly finding ways to change your beliefs based on today’s cultural stereotypes.

Now you might be thinking, based on everything written above, that culture as a phenomenon is rather subjective, and there is no such thing as “good” and “bad” cultures. Well this is where it gets tricky; Bad, negative or so-called “toxic” cultures are actually formed when leaders are oblivious to their identities and strengths, and end up hiring the wrong people, spreading the wrong messages, and instilling pretentious, unreal and dubious principles, in an attempt to build a “sought out” culture that is contradictory to who they are and incongruent with their underlying beliefs, values and strengths.  Let’s consider this example: 

Let us assume that you are someone who is a firm believer in a organizational hierarchy and title-driven authority. However, you have been reading up a lot on “organizational cultures” and have bought into “good” and “bad” culture stereotypes that stem mostly from western/individualistic so-called specialists. So you go ahead and decide that your beliefs are “Wrong” and you need to change everything. What do you do next? You hire teams that are made up of confident individualists with zero tolerance towards hierarchy and unequal power distribution; in other words, who hold opposing beliefs to yours. They join, and a couple of months later mutual mistrust and frustration start creeping up. You are now six months down the line and they end up leaving (or worse, STAYING!)  and start labeling you as a bad employer with a terrible culture. Yes, according to them you do have a “bad culture”! They don’t believe in what you believe in! They are merely a reflection of a pretentious, externally-influenced, and rather ridiculous desired state that you are attempting to form. What do you do next? You hire consultancy to dig deep into why you are unable to build your desired culture, and you end up paying them a S%#T-load amount of money to continue with this ridiculous attempt to build and develop something that is not real! 

Again, nobody is labeling your preference for “organizational hierarchy” as a bad thing; and nobody should! It’s just simply who you are! Its just a cultural characteristic, and NOT a deficit.

In fact, Power Distance is one of many national cultural dimensions that are commonly used by organizational psychologists in an attempt to understand national cultural characteristics and their interplay with other subcultures within organizational settings. PDI (Power Distance Index) refers to is the extent to which the lower ranking individuals of a society "accept and expect that power is distributed unequally”.

Some societies score much higher than others on the Power Distance Index (PDI); for example, Power Distance is rather low in countries like the US and Netherlands. This basically means that people within these nations are generally not intimidated by hierarchy and titles,believe in autonomy and flexibility, and do not associate power with rank. In places like Malaysia as well as many countries throughout the MENA region however, where power distance is rather high, organizational hierarchy is rather common and people tend to view high ranked executives in a superior manner. Understanding where you sit on the Power Distance continuum and hiring people accordingly is one of many useful tools for building the “right” culture and achieving organizational success.

The overall theme of the message I am attempting to convey here is that of self-reflection, awareness, and genuine understanding. Stop trying to be something you are not. Dig deep and discover your underlying beliefs. Start understanding and embracing your genuine strengths. Find ways to be more YOU. Find ways to hire people who represent what YOU believe in. Extract values that are a good representation of YOU and YOUR beliefs. And lastly, make sure you have a purpose that goes beyond YOU.

You could consider hiring an expert to help with uncovering your true identity as well as discovering any gaps or obstacles in your existing setup. You better be ready for a serious reality slap in the face though! And seriously, stop hiring outsiders to help you become something you simply are NOT!

If you fall into one of the following categories, then you’ve fallen into the culture trap, and it's time for some serious self-reflection:

• Do you find yourself constantly mistrusting your employees and their intentions?
• Do you do a lot of firing and constantly blame it on them and their performance?
• Do you find it difficult to build a reputable employer brand? What do people say about you as an employer in the market?
• Do you have a bunch of corporate values that are just printed on paper and not really embedded into your environment and practices?
• Does everything mentioned here come across as “fluff” to you? Have you given up on the ideology that organizational success is highly (and to some extent exclusively) dependent on things like Culture, Talent Management, People Development, Coaching, Engagement...etc.?

A bit about me:

I am a talent management professional and coach. I firmly believe that all forms of culture building, adaptation, and integration require powerful coaching interventions. At the end of the day coaching is about raising people’s awareness.

I prefer not to categorize myself as a certain type of coach (i.e. life coach, performance, coach, executive coach...etc.), as I believe that it is absolutely necessary for all forms of coaching to cover human well-being in its totality! I mean come on, someone who is morbidly obese, carrying around 200lbs of excess weight, and doing absolutely nothing about it, cant assume that excelling in his career will make up for his lack of physical well-being.  The same way someone else cannot be fully engaged with their spouse and children at home if they spend more than half of their life in a lifeless, dead-end job! Well-being cannot be segregated; everything goes hand in hand. Well that’s my two cents anyway.

I have met one too many people who, after retiring and finally having the opportunity to spend some quality with themselves and reflect on their lives, end up questioning their purpose, existence, and are unable to answer the simple question of “what the heck was it all for?!”.  I feel absolutely privileged for coming to these realizations at a rather young age, and for embracing all facets of genuine well-being that go beyond the superficialities and distractions that today’s modern world offers us. Helping people and organizations realize and fulfill their purpose is something I very much enjoy, and that offers me a great sense of fulfillment.

As a coach and consultant I have watched the rise and fall of many organizations simply due to a lack of awareness. Many outfits in this part of the world, unfortunately, are attempting to succeed by mimicking the journeys of other highly successful organizations in the west, and hiring outsiders to help them “change” and “improve” towards states of utter superficiality. I am seeing a lot of non-genuine and pretentious organizational cultures today, and I truly believe that it is my purpose to spread this awareness and help as many people/organizational as I possibly can within my lifespan.

Ayman K. Kattan