The Dangerous F Word in Culture

No, its not that four letter word. Its a letter shorter, trickier - Fun. Associating culture with the fun is the new Maya. If you build a world cloud for culture, fun definitely finds itself with a big font occupying a large space in most of the organizations, for right reasons. Some of us crave for social connects, love to be happy, be recognised and feel secure in the environment. Fun encapsulates all of these in that word.

The danger comes if fun takes a disproportionate space in the landscape of culture, so much so that every other factor is subverted leading to a degenerative workspace. Lot of wrong mental models are formed even to the extent that Feedback loses the candor, expectations are minimalistic, conflicts are avoided and resolved through more fun than through constructive dialogues & facilitation. After sometime, Maslow's law kicks in where people's hierarchy of needs goes up, they feel something is missing, become dis satisfied and even more fun is thrown in to resolve the problem of disengagement.

So What's missing here? Wrong recruitment, vision? Cool tech ? Inclusive culture? Project Changes? Newer facilities ? Recognition? Possibly yes, but not a convincing answer. The answer lies in Daniel Pink's Mantra for motivation - autonomy, mastery, purpose. There should be something in the culture that creates these and a dialogue about what each of them means in an organization. The chief of the three factors from an individual perspective is Mastery- where he/she is an environment where they gain Mastery which gives them a confidence for purpose and be accountable for outcomes, resulting in autonomy. Without Mastery, no amount of fun, social bonding would make both the individual and the organization successful together.

Personally, I would choose a culture that makes me uncomfortable occasionally and exposes my ignorance, for that gives me a chance to expand with newer skills, take risks, collaborate with more people and expand my social capital inside the organization ( as a by product). Exposing Ignorance gives me the motivation to read more, to participate in forums genuinely and gives me a need to collaborate/pair with other folks where my learning increases organically. The cycle of "Making me Uncomfortable- Exposing my Ignorance- Me raising upto the challenge" is one loop which one repeated would spiral up the career learning and path to newer levels of satisfaction and contribution.

Seen in another way, this helps you see the correct reality of who you are and where you can go, rather living in a delusional self images, derives from social interactions, conflict avoiding environments. When we have people with a correct sense of reality, it is easier to make the movement, for the movement is aligned, coherent and more importantly real.