People matter, Results count

I just came back from a week in India, providing insights into how organisations can leverage the impact of #theculturefactor.

During one of our exercises, we ask participants to write down some of their organisational goals. The above value statement came back as one of the elements.

Pretty much every organisation has an obligatory statement regarding its employees. And all tend to be equally contradicting.

How do we help organisations to enable people to reflect on the above statement across the globe in a way that makes sense locally?

I’ve worked out a small example of how, by leveraging national cultural tendencies, organisations can do a much better job at creating an organisational culture, an organisational “way”, which really conveys what is meant and how it might be perceived.

Culture, Values and Behaviour

Three things are important to clarify up front:

1. We define organisational culture as the way members of an organisation relate to each other, their work and the outside world, in comparison to other organisations.
2. We believe that national cultural tendencies will always trump organisational culture.
3. What people value doesn’t necessarily predict their behaviour. We will all, at one time or another, behave in a way that goes against our values, simply because the “exchange rate” was good enough. With “exchange rate” I mean that we either got paid enough, learned enough or otherwise profited from doing something contradicting what we hold dear (e.g. do overwork at the expense of family time in exchange for having a nice company name on our CV).

Let’s take the following example. You want to roll out a performance management system which supports the value statement of “people matter, results count”. You are in charge of rolling this out in two countries; one Nordic country, one Anglo-saxon country. The Nordic country scores, what we call in Hofstede terminology, “Feminine” – meaning that the dominant value in society is consensus. The Anglo-saxon culture scores “Masculine” – meaning that the dominant value is competition.

• Try introducing Anglo-saxon style appraisal systems in the Nordics, and you’ll be up for a real treat. The tendency is that it will be perceived as “you don’t trust us to work”. Leading to demotivation.
• Try working without an appraisal system in the Anglo world and you’ll be presented with “where are my achievement goals”. Leading to demotivation.

Affecting Organisational Culture

There are ways to influence how people in organisations relate to each other, their work and the outside world.

1. You can use things which are easily spotted from the outside; we call them symbols (e.g. logos).
2. You can promote certain types of behaviour and create what we call “heroes” – those people whose behaviour exemplifies how things should be done.
3. You can install repetitive actions, which we call “rituals” – for example, ringing a bell every time a sales deal is made. Although perhaps not always conscious – these rituals become so ingrained in our experience that missing them (e.g. by moving to another company) impacts our behaviour.

Coming back to our value statement, “people matter, results count”: the below graphs shows you how you can leverage #theculturefactor to ensure people react to the statement in the way you intended (e.g. more towards the “people” side or more towards the “results” side).

COPYRIGHT by Egbert Schram

Key Drivers - Family or Status?

In Feminine cultures (e.g. the Nordics), the predominant value driver is family time (or leisure time).

• This means that any work-related activity that takes place during work time is seen as perfect – the moment you plan it outside work time you occupy precious “me” time – which does not typically motivate.
• Work should also be fun, so you can relate better to your colleagues; parties are a perfect ritual to exemplify the bond.
• The perfect way to show you have a people focus is to promote managers who showcase having an engaged workforce – even if their results are below that of the “cattle driver” who shows better financial results but has a less engaged workforce.
• And the best way to subconsciously indicate you care about people is to show "your people" in your articles, in your sales materials - it is your people who provide the "face" to your organisation. Not its products, or its profitability statement.

In Masculine cultures (e.g. Anglo), the predominant value driver is achievement (financial status).

• This means that anything that takes place outside work hours is ok, as long as it leads to an increase in achievement opportunity.
• Showing people’s success is important, so a perfect motivator is the public announcement of bonuses (public recognition).
• Promoting managers who deliver excellent results, even at the expense of their team is not a problem, if you want to create an “up or out” culture.
• And the best way to indicate that it’s all about the results is to show growth figures, financial results, etc.

Of course, in reality you′ll end up with the typical mix. The point being is that you can consciously “engineer” the work experience, and shape the type of organisational culture you need to create in order to serve whatever strategic goals you may have at any time in the various parts and locations of your business.

“How” these experiences are most likely to be interpreted under tense situations is guided by national cultural values. There are six, so take some time to study them and learn more about which combination will most likely lead to volatile situations and how to mitigate these issues the best way you can (see here).

And if you have enough cash to offer, enough learning to offer, or a serious competitive advantage, you′re lucky – culture is less of an issue here as the exchange rate will be positive enough for most employees. Just be aware that once your luck changes, that’s when you find out whether or not you actually have the Best Culture to Perform. And trust me; it′s better to be in the driver′s seat and manage your organisational culture pro-actively, rather than re-actively as that will mean you′re running 2-3 years behind.

Feel free to reach out if you want to know more.