Where does Organizational Culture come from?

Believe or not but organizational culture is a social contract as well as a function of other systemic factors. Organizational culture does not come from an article and neither does it come from a book. You can read the best organizational culture of any other book but this will not automatically assimilate it into your organization. Having worked in several companies and provided consultancy to several companies as part of the big four and in our private organization, I have come to learn one or two things about culture in organizations.

A)-Leadership

If the leadership uses the blame game so will the people that follow that leader (after all it's about bread and butter). If the manger never takes ownership then no one else will. Preaching your vision, mission and values is different from actually practicing it. People need to see it in order to believe. Organizations function by cascading. If the leader has a certain behavior that behavior will cascade to the rest of the company. Eventually everyone will have the same attitude as the leader. If the leader buries people under the bus, the managers will do the same.

If a leader rewards fairly so will the the managers. A leader will surround themselves with the type of people who perpetuate their style of habits. It does not matter how much framed messages we put around the company for visual emphasis, if the leader does not practice that which is written then people will just not follow suit.

Organizations are peer pressure cookers, whatever is fueling the decision making process is the culture that will be served.

B)-Standard

Now I was going to call this systems or processes but I gathered let me call it standard. Culture is a norm of how things are done. It is the standard by which people make decisions, take risks and go about their work. That standard is set as a frame of reference that people will follow. If the decision making process or templates are done without consistency then inconsistency becomes the standard.

A company desires to be number one in the takeaway business and employs a data analyst to review their efficiency. This in itself is a culture and its success will hinge on;

• What scale do we place the importance of the process of data analysis
• How often do we refer to the data analysis process
• How often do we ignore it and how often do we refer to it

If a company preaches empathy but it continually leaves employees out to dry then that culture is not real and empathy is just a word.

When people insist on policies more than common sense of practice then you know there is a culture issue. Policies must follow the standard of organizational culture, and not the other way round. A culture cannot be created by policies but rather culture creates policies.

The reason why some organizations have policies that they do not adhere to is because the polices were not defined by the culture, they were either defined by a consultant or by compliance needs.

C)-Environment

To some extent the larger environment can influence the culture of the company. The economies and the politics can play a part if not reigned in. If everyone in the industry is taking shortcuts there is a level of influence which can occur to the rest of the companies as industry is a social landscape.

It is possible for the company to stand out, others have done it, which is why they are called industry leaders. However there is a limit to what extent a company can stand out which is why some firms end up leaving the countries all together. If the environment becomes so toxic to the culture of the organization then the company will have no choice to either conform or leave. (There can only be two options)

Culture affects the bottom line meaning profit and revenue are long term dependents of the company culture. Hence a company can review its operations as based on the environment and decide to leave because the environment affects the culture of business there by the revenue.

D)-Employees

The wrong ingredients, no mater how good the chef is, will not produce the desired output. Organizational culture is a social contract in which the employees and the organization leadership sign up to.

Just to give an example there is a "very nice" stationary shop that I shop in Zimbabwe, where the culture in there is amazing, funny enough though when you bump into the employees after work they are quiet different from the shop culture. Those are employees that are signed up to the social contract, hence whenever they are in uniform they are in a different element.

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Social contract might seem too much but in the end that is what it is, we all come from different backgrounds, and for us to "gel" better, a contract of culture is needed.

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