Organizational Culture Determines "Readiness" for the Future of Work

"What exactly is organizational culture again?", the CEO asked. I quickly realized that most CEO's are still unclear about the word "culture". Some have simplified culture to mean "the way that things are done around here", but that doesn't provide a clear understanding about why culture is behind the failure of the best laid plans.

Peter Drucker coined the phrase "Culture eats strategy for breakfast" but the philosophy wasn't made famous until Mark Fields, former CEO at Ford began to use it. Fields was a visionary, who had a clear understanding of Ford's business, a great track record of results as head of North American operations, and a long-term winning strategy. He was tapped to serve as Ford's CEO in 2014 after nearly 30 years with the company. Nevertheless, Alan Mulally was a tough act to follow, and the senior leadership team resisted moving away from Mulally's vision and systematic processes. Bryce Hoffman, author of Red Teaming asserts that many mistakes were made with all of that internal friction. In fact, Fortune reported that Ford laid off a significant portion of its workforce, had several high profile recalls, and lost market capitalization to Tesla. Fields lost his job in 2017.

The Power of Culture.

Although culture may be considered a "soft" term, it can be a powerful indictment against leadership. If everything is working well, culture can resist change. If everything is not going well, culture becomes a key factor behind organizational failures. Alternatively, if a company is on the brink of a breakthrough, culture can guide it safely to its destination.

The Different Types of Culture.

Culture should not be confused with amenities, perks or other benefits that make the workplace "fun". There are some who believe that adult sliding boards, video games, toys, food, time off, and WOWPoints define the culture; but these are merely a side-show to the real work environment. Culture pertains to how work gets done in an organization, and how executives lead. It answers the discrepancies between written policies (e.g., harassment is not tolerated) and unwritten rules (e.g., dating subordinates is OK). It also determines how far people can go before bad behavior is reprimanded or good behavior is rewarded.

Hence, culture can manifest itself in many different ways. The following are just a few examples:

• Innovative culture, where creativity and ingenuity reign through simplistic systems, dynamic decision-making, and consistency.
• Chaos culture, where there is no structure and people do whatever they want-- just don't be a snitch because snitches get stitches.
• Complacent culture, where no-one challenges the status quo.
• Agile culture, where workers ask questions, demonstrate flexibility, and readily adapt to change.
• Conformist/uniformist culture, where maintaining the existing norms and traditions is more important than the work itself. This is not to be confused with a Bureaucratic culture, where the "rules" rule.
• Inclusive culture, where opportunity, interaction, communication and decision making are properly configured for high performance, regardless of diverse characteristics.
• Competitive culture, where employees aggressively vie against one another for perks, benefits and opportunities.

It's possible for different types of culture to be independent, have varying degrees or levels, and/or overlap with other forms.

It is not unusual for leaders to be mistaken about their organization's culture because they are used to giving lip-service to this complex term. For example, some organizations believe they have an innovative culture. Yet, employees do not offer new ideas, workers are discouraged from asking too many questions, and feedback is only provided once a year during performance evaluations. Believe me, innovation left the building a long time ago. Likewise, some employers believe they have an inclusive culture because the website shows pictures of diverse, happy-looking people. It must be true, right?

What's Your Culture? And How to Change It.

Renowned professor and author Edgar Schein asserts, "Organizational learning, development and planned change cannot be understood without considering culture as the primary source of resistance to change." Finding out what type of culture is most prevalent in your organization is a matter of assessing the data and asking the right questions to gain insight into that data. For example, are employees comfortable with failure? Can workers utilize or adjust to different leadership styles? Do individuals feel as if they are making a meaningful contribution? What's unfair? Is staff committed to life-long learning or is professional development "non-essential"? Is communication a strength?

Once you gather the data, it's best to take small steps to change the culture. In other words, there must be an intentional plan with performance indicators, a timeline, responsible parties, and evaluation criteria. You should also plan to benchmark outcomes and progress against others in the industry, as well as best-in-class employers. Finally, take the time to celebrate the small victories by regularly offering praise and rewards.

Diversity professionals are uniquely skilled in matters pertaining to organizational culture. They are experts in dealing with complexity, ambiguity and change. Further, these leaders have the potential to help align operations and employee skills with a nod towards sustainability. Employing a diversity professional (or team) to handle political correctness, Affirmative Action, or day-to-day employee problems is an organizational weakness. This weakness will determine whether your company is adequately prepared for the future. Further, it will ascertain how responsive the organization is to activism or disruption. If you don't feel the diversity leader can handle operating on this level, get them certified. It doesn't make sense for the company to go through all sorts of mishaps and mistakes when there is a highly-compensated professional on staff that is being under-utilized.

Now is the time to stretch your senior management team and change the organizational culture by re-defining the role of your Diversity and Inclusion leader. Can you really afford to be unprepared during this season of business uncertainty?

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Leah Smiley, CDE, is the President of the Society for Diversity, a virtual professional association for diversity and inclusion leadership. For more information about the Society for Diversity's certification and educational programs, visit www.societyfordiversity.org.