Shaping Company Culture and Driving Success
Rhiannon Woo
Nurturing Success with The Heart of Teamwork | Stakeholder Alignment Jedi | Company Building Coach for Pre-Series A Startups | Sustainable Agtech and CPG
Culture at work is like the personality of the company. It's made up of the shared ideas, habits, and behaviors that everyone in the company has. It shapes how people work together, make choices, and behave at work.
Dr. Edgar Schein, a big thinker in the field of workplace behavior, thought of work culture as having three parts:
Artifacts, which are easily observable elements within a company, provide valuable insights into its culture. Among these artifacts, stories that circulate within the company hold significant importance. They serve as instructive lessons, illustrating to employees the behaviors that are either rewarded or penalized.
These stories, often shared informally during casual conversations or company gossip, carry more weight than official training programs. They offer employees a genuine understanding of what is truly valued within the organization. Particularly, stories about failure, mistakes, and missed opportunities hold great significance.
The way these stories are told can shape the team's attitude towards risk-taking. They can either foster a culture of excessive caution and fear of failure or encourage a willingness to embrace bold endeavors and take calculated risks. The narratives shared within the company play a vital role in establishing the prevailing mindset and values within the team.
Companies that value innovation understand that failure is a natural part of the process. By sharing stories about failed projects that led to valuable lessons or subsequent successes, they encourage employees to take risks and experiment. For instance, James Dyson, the founder of Dyson Ltd., often shares how he had 5,126 failed prototypes over 15 years before he created the successful bagless vacuum cleaner.
On the other hand, stories can instill fear and anxiety. Wells Fargo’s fake account scandal is a cautionary tale of a culture of fear. The bank set extremely difficult sales targets and put intense pressure on employees to meet them. Those who consistently missed their targets risked losing their jobs.?Whistleblowers were fired for capricious reasons. This fear of job loss created an environment where employees were willing to engage in unethical practices to avoid failure and keep their positions. Additionally, there were reports of aggressive behavior and retaliation against those who didn't meet targets, further contributing to the culture of fear. Overall, a toxic atmosphere emerged where unethical behavior thrived due to the high-pressure targets and fear of negative consequences.
Use stories to build your company’s culture
Company mythology and culture come together through historical events, shared experiences, and storytelling. Established companies build their mythology by repeatedly telling their founding story and celebrating important milestones and achievements. This mythology then guides how employees connect with the mission and vision of the company, as well as with each other.
The founding story lays the foundation for the company's mythology. It shares the vision, inspiration, and challenges faced by the founders, establishing the company's values and culture.
Significant milestones and achievements also contribute to the company's mythology. These can include breakthrough innovations, successful product launches, major client acquisitions, or overcoming obstacles. These stories become part of the collective memory and are passed down through generations of employees.
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Newer companies often find inspiration from other companies and influential leaders by borrowing their stories as examples to strive for. This helps shape their own mythology and work towards their goals. When leaders share these role model stories, it's important to connect them to the company's own aspirations.
Identifying similarities between the role model company's journey and your own aspirations allows you to adapt and incorporate relevant aspects into your own mythology. This can include shared values, problem-solving approaches, innovation focus, or customer-centric strategies.
Highlighting shared values in your storytelling showcases how your company embodies those values and uses them to guide decisions, culture, and mission. This establishes a connection and alignment with the role model company's mythology while maintaining your own unique identity.
To build a positive company culture, leaders should leverage stories to reinforce values, inspire collaboration, and foster a problem-solving mindset. By sharing stories of both successes and failures, leaders can shape a culture that promotes growth, resilience, and continuous learning. Ultimately, company mythology and storytelling are powerful tools for shaping the culture and guiding the behaviors and mindset of employees.
Discover the power of failure and the art of storytelling with insights from entrepreneur James Dyson's journey. In his book "Invention: A Life," Dyson shares how 5,126 failed prototypes led to his breakthrough bagless vacuum cleaner. This article unveils the storytelling elements behind Dyson's tale, including structure, emotional connection, authentic details, thematic links, and consistent storytelling. Gain valuable lessons to captivate your audience and effectively convey the significance of your own ideas. Embrace failure as a stepping stone to success and master the art of storytelling to inspire others on your entrepreneurial path.
Discover the lasting contributions of social psychologist Edgar H. Schein, who recently passed away at the age of 94. Schein, a renowned professor at MIT Sloan, left a profound impact on the study of culture, organizations, and leadership. From his research on coercive persuasion to his work on career anchors and organization culture, Schein's ideas continue to shape the field of management. Dive into five of his enduring concepts, including the power of storytelling, career motivations, organization culture analysis, humble inquiry in leadership, and effective organizational change. Explore the legacy of this influential scholar and learn from his invaluable insights.
Rhiannon Woo is a highly experienced Quality Management professional known for her expertise in building quality-focused cultures and high-performing teams. With a deep understanding of the ag-tech, CPG, and cannabis consumables industries, Rhiannon has worked with numerous startups across the United States, providing leadership training and guidance to develop cultures of operational excellence. Her ability to clearly define and communicate expectations has helped entrepreneurs foster quality-driven mindsets within their organizations. Rhiannon's coaching services empower founders to develop clarity and confidence as they scale their businesses or seek funding, teaching them techniques to document and standardize practices while collecting meaningful data for continuous improvement.