Culture - where does it come from?
Seema Bangia
Founder @ Leading Edge - People Consulting | Leadership Coach, Organization Development, Equity & Inclusion Strategist
Yesterday, during one of the discussions with someone, we were exploring the "concept of culture". Where does it come from? who drives it? who embeds it into the system and then how it is practiced or rather institutionalized across the organization?
Very interestingly, we both agreed that it is always top driven. When we say that culture of some organization is great, it actually means that top leadership is driven by values, people centric approach and not always focusing on numbers but also the means to get those numbers.
This is my personal opinion, with fun intended and pun unintended, hiring the top level especially the CXOs and more importantly the CEO, special cautions should be taken. The source of hiring for such positions should be strictly driven by focusing on the background, previous organizations that incumbent has worked and who were his seniors. A very deliberate and informed approach should be applied. I would like to substantiate this with an example, "People centric organization with robust values and rich history (called Company A) hiring a CEO from not so value driven organization where money is the means and ends both (called Company B) then in that situation this CEO who joins Company A will drive culture of Company B because his/her mind is conditioned to work with such values of Company B. For him, people centric and "how" part will not matter so much. The same mindset will be peculated down the line. Though Company A which is so well regarded and renowned for its values because of mindset of this "CEO" will struggle to establish the correct culture for this particular business vertical. So the guardian of true values though established in the past by the promoter or previous leadership, will be under threat.
The conclusion is, hiring decisions are to be more guarded for bringing such people on board by ways of; proper screening methods to be applied like checking Culture quotient, in addition to financial performance of that incumbent, competencies driving culture and values should be assessed
More insights later- how one can check “culture quotient” ……….
Leadership Coach & Mentor
5 年Culture being driven and being cultivated are different. Leaders ought to have in them to drive but the skill to cultivate it is a mass approach. Proficiency is must in both. As for how do we ensure culture shift (not always we can have a perfect culture fit!), we enable on-boarding coaching. Done a few at CEO level recently and it works!
Retail Strategist /Project Management/Sales Strategy
5 年Nice thought Ma’am????. I believe same has to go with the promotions (from same company) in the top management. And for this there should always be a cross level communication too, to keep a check on the correct culture prevailing????
Strategic HR Leader|Business Partner|People & Culture | Strategic Process Lead
5 年Seema Bangia nicely articulated, driving culture is a continuous process. Constant pulse check is best tool to asses it. Its essential to ask the most junior level employee, that how they feel in the organisation. That portray, how impactful is your culture driven activities.
Fractal CXO I Transformation Catalyst I Mentor I Educator #Leadership #Strategy#Grow/ Scaleup Businesses
5 年Nice Seema Bangia, it will be good to have a conversation on what drives and how does one transform. Let us be in touch. Thank you
Be More Than
5 年Quite agree