Organization Culture - a deceptively complex concept

The definition of the term “Culture”, much like many ubiquitous terms in corporate world, is considered to be easily understood by most and yet most of the people will struggle to concretely define it. This is evidenced by the fact that Verbeke[1] et. al. found 54 definition of the term “Culture” in their study.

O’Reilly & Chatman[2] define culture as “a set of norms and values that are widely shared and strongly held throughout the organization”.

Maureen[3] concludes, after 130 in-depth interviews conducted with C level executives of approximately 80 large professional services firms, that Culture is rated as the most important factor by the leadership of these organizations. She defines culture as: “Culture is viewed as the invisible glue that holds everything together— the collectively accepted modes of behavior and unspoken rules that shape a firm’s working environment and operating style”.

Satya[4] adopts a different approach in defining culture. Even though he emphasizes culture to an extent of considering the “C” in CEO to stand for “Culture”; and yet, he doesn’t present a succinct definition of culture. Rather than subscribing to a definition he settles on a description of culture which is inspired by how the literary theorist Terry Eagleton considers culture - which is : “a kind of social unconscious”. Satya’s description of culture is spread across multiple pages throughout his book[4]. He narrates how multiple influences throughout his life has shaped his understanding of what culture is.

Even after consuming the above references, I still could not define Culture in a single easily understood sentence – even though I know exactly what culture is.

Funnily enough, I have spent sleepless nights worrying and stressful days protecting the culture at Confiz all the while struggling myself to uphold that very culture - and therein lies the mystery of what Culture really is.

When I became a father almost two decades ago, I was filled with a feeling of joy and fear. I struggled to fully comprehend these feelings; until I came across the saying: “Having a kid is like wearing your heart on the outside”. This helped me make sense of my feelings. This leads me to believe that sometimes the only way to fully understand something is to be immersed into it. Defining what Culture is, is much like defining what being a parent is. For those of you who aren’t yet parents – think of how you would define what “Heart” is. The mechanical definition of parenthood or heart are simple enough. But those definition do not even begin to capture the essence of these concepts. For me culture is the same. This is precisely why, despite having a shared emphasis on culture[3] and for most part, even shared values, culture unfolds differently for most of the world’s largest and most successful companies. For me this translates into – every human being has a heart and while the pumping rate of a healthy heart remains with-in the same range it still ‘beats’ differently for all of us. If you can’t relate to this statement, then maybe you have never been in love ??

All the above being said, I know very well that as engineers we all work well with terms that we are able to define succinctly. Unfortunately, after raking my brain for many months and after consuming a lot of material on this very topic, I am now of an opinion, that the approach of defining culture in few sentences and then deriving core values from it so that organizations can “rely on set of [these] core values as the guideposts for helping employees align their behavior with corporate culture”[5] is an academician ‘s approach. We, the practitioners, ought to follow Satya’s approach to culture.

In my opinion, a practitioner’s approach would be for the top leadership of the company to first infuse the culture in every single aspect of the organization. From the organization’s value differentiation, to its business model, to its talent acquisition, to its engineering excellence, to how people are held accountable, how they are groomed, how meetings are conducted, how opinions are formed and even how information is disseminated. Once you have infused the cultural norms in every aspect of your operations, the next step is to closely monitor the organization’s performance on multitude of KPIs both financial and non-financial. You adjust the culture, and consequently your processes, if the KPIs are not met. Once you have the cultural manifestations delivering on all cylinders you would have successfully established the culture and made it more than mere words. In such an organization, everyone will be experiencing the culture. My thesis is that rather than following the traditional approach of defining a company’s culture and then regurgitating it across the organization until people are sick of it – the right approach is for top management to infuse that culture across the organization. Let the people bathe in your cultural norms and once they are living through it, they would know what it really is. Formally defining that culture from that point onwards would then become a moot point, because now people would be experiencing the very culture that you were initially struggling to define. Going back to our “heart” analogy - once your heart skips the beat on seeing your loved one – do you then really care how you define the heart?

In summary, the top leadership of the organization should establish the culture, should create the eco system of the organization such that it infuses the cultural norms in every aspect and then let the people experience it and derive benefit from it for themselves, for their customers and the organization. Only then should you adopt an academician’s approach of putting a definition on top of the culture and putting it out there in words for all to see. Now that they have experienced it, they could relate easily to the definition of it. This also puts the top leadership fully responsible for establishing the culture as opposed to the traditional approach of posting the culture statements all around the organization and then expecting people to magically start following these values and reaping the benefit of the culture. It didn’t work well for many large behemoths of IT industry and its not going to work for your organization either. Take Microsoft as an example – the same company, probably the same advertised cultural values but it took Satya to infuse it in ways that he and his top leadership could, to bring a new face of Microsoft to the world.

Remember that once you have established the right culture at your organization, the job is only half done. It is the people of the organization who should then co-own the culture and nurture and morph it going forward.

Beyond a certain organization size, the top leadership cannot propagate and enforce culture the way they could when the organization was small. Therefore, as organizations grow it’s the employees who must own the culture. Culture is an eco-system that demands a symbiotic relationship with its inhabitants. It shapes the inhabitants as much as they shape it. This is why, it is extremely important that your organization’s citizens co-own your culture; else, the top leadership will soon be spread too thin to watch over the culture and very soon you will lose your cultural differentiation.

Culture is a living & breathing being, it is a joint responsibility of founders, top leaders and employees to fight for the culture that they want to work in. Not every employee will want the same cultural norms - therefore, it is understandable for some of the employees to part ways, sometimes disgruntled, because they don't want to work in the culture which the majority of their peers wish for themselves. Amazon and Google are two very different companies. At Amazon, Jeff Bezos has created a culture in which he believes that if Amazon becomes a top employer to work for, then this is not a badge of honor for the company, but this is an indication of arrival of "Day 2" at Amazon which, in his point of view, is a harbinger of impending doom of Amazon [6]. Google and Amazon have shown tremendous growth over the years and have introduced the world to so many innovations. And yet they have both inculcated a different culture to achieve the $$$ growth. If you look deeply into these companies - you would notice that when realities of the corporate world hits the fan that's when the culture is put to the real test. None of the for-proft companies will ever meet the idealistic standards of cultural excellence, but most of them will do whatever they can to have some semblance of a "feel good" culture. Choose an employer whose culture "somewhat" aligns with what you want around yourself instead of rushing into an employment and then be disgruntled about what you see around yourself.

In an earlier version of this article, I had highlighted that Google has been on # 1 spot in Fortune’s list of “The 100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014. But in 2020’s list it no longer is. Even though it remains on Glassdoor’s list (#11) and Forbes’s list (#8). I had quoted this and this and had hinted that Google's culture is gradually diluting which is one of the causes of them loosing their top place in the list. One of the readers suggested that my conclusion was mis-placed. I have never worked at Google, and whatever I know of its culture is from some acquaintances who have or still are working at Google and from some articles on the social media. I took this as an opportunity to research a bit more. Sources like this and this and this, while written by Google senior leaders (who will obviously carry a bias), do have honest insights into Google's culture and their never ending battle to protect their culture. Going through these books made me realize that we should have realistic expectations from our employers. All for profit organizations have to deal with so many harsh realities that they can never follow a path that every single one of us would agree with. Innovation requires money and so does hiring & retaining smart people. Whether an organization earns its money by making use of our digital footprint generated on their free applications or by propagating digital addiction - the fact is that the money these organizations thus make also fund their nobler innovations. We no longer want to pay for things that our parents used to. As they say, "if you are not paying for a product - then you are the product". I believe that Google does a great job in upholding their cultural norms. Given their current size and continued growth - it is impossible for them to keep all their employees happy with every single of their decisions and policies. Perhaps, the large size of an organization also precludes its chances to remain on the top spot of such lists.

References:

1: W. Verbeke, M. Volgering, and M. Hessels, “Exploring the Conceptual Expansion Within the Field of Organizational Behavior: Organizational Climate and Organizational Culture,” Journal of Management Studies 35, no. 3 (May 1998): 303-329 identified 54 definitions of organizational culture. For a terrific overview of the current state of corporate culture literature, see J.A. Chatman and C.A. O’Reilly, “Paradigm Lost: Reinvigorating the Study of Organizational Culture,” Research in Organizational Behavior 36 (November 2016): 199-224.

2: C.A. O’Reilly and J.A. Chatman, “Culture as Social Control: Corporations, Cults, and Commitment,” Research in Organizational Behavior 18, eds. B.M. Staw and L.L. Cummings (Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, 1996): 166.

3: B. Maureen, “Art of Managing Professional Services: Insights from Leaders of the World's Top Firms” (Prentice Hall 2011): 19.

4: N. Satya, S. Greg and N. Tracie, “Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone,” (HarperCollins Publishers Business, 2017)

5: S. Donald, T. Stefano and S. Charles, “When It Comes to Culture, Does Your Company Walk the Talk?” https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/when-it-comes-to-culture-does-your-company-walk-the-talk/ accessed Dec 2020.

6: Brad Stone. 2021. Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire. Simon & Schuster UK.