This article features Mr. Ankit Jain, professor at Bada Business who speaks on the organizational culture and its elements. He talks about the importance a culture holds within a company and how it can impact success towards achieving its goals. Specifically Mr. Jain’s key areas of discussion include: What organizational culture is How to create an organizational culture The advantages of organizational culture How to maintain an organizational culture How organizational culture can be beneficial to the organization.

Key Note #1: What is Organizational Culture?

Organizational Culture is the amalgamation of different behavioral norms, values, beliefs, and expectations that characterize the environment of an organization. To simplify this definition further, consider the following analogy: “When it comes to engineering and medicine colleges, all students tend to behave, posture, and work in a particular way. Even someone who comes back to his/her college after a decade will observe that these behaviors do not change.” The answer to this is strong culture, strong enough to somme might even call it a strong brand. It becomes stronger when elders train youngers to follow the same behaviors hence reproducing the same culture.

While selecting the organizational culture for your company, you might need to consider the following aspects:

Your Preferred Work Style:

As a promoter or leader, you may prefer to work in an authoritative or consultative manner. Your choice will guide the organizational culture.

Your Industry:

Different industries necessitate different cultures. An example is:

A process centered culture is essential for all manufacturing firms.

Banks also need a very controlled process-oriented culture.

In contrast, the culture in advertising is more loose or casual.

Therefore, the underlying industry influences the organizational culture.

Key Note #2: Trade-Offs Involved Within Culture

There are multiple trade-offs within \organizational culture that each firm must navigate. A few trade-offs that are more significant include the following:

Level of Rigidity:

Automation is a good example of a domain where flexibility is rare. Many companies, particularly in less developed industries, have very rigid employment schedules. For instance, attendance in manufacturing firms is often mandatory while in marketing and advertising, attendance can be at the discretion of the employee.

Focus on team work and focus on individual work:

Some firms concentrate on outputs from individual employees, while others build upon outputs from teams. Usually, the nature of the industry frequently influences this decision.

Focus on Processes versus Focus on Results:

Some industries like manufacturing focus on insisting processes which are often deviated from in the results. While some are more concentrated on results irrespective of the processes employed, others are greatly focused on the end results.

The primary characteristics of open and closed cultures are divided by whether or not decision making is collaborative: an open culture features shared decision making whereas in a closed culture only a few people decide. Sometimes, specific cases can be so complicated that decision making at this level is warranted.

Unlike in centralized culture where only a handful of leaders make the core decisions, an empowered one enables many middle managers and other important staff to make decisions.

Proactive firms tend to lead entire industries while their reactive counterparts follow behind. Both are equally effective, though which one an organization adopts relies purely on their goals.

There’s no culture that can be considered false. The most important aspect is determining the culture that will work best for your company.

Key Note #3: Types of Organizational Culture

Some cultures tend to emerge within organizations with more defined constructs;

Team Culture or Group Culture:

In this culture structure of small groups becomes basic. These groups exist to accomplish a certain objective and they are formulated in such a manner that enhances their collaboration.

Culture Dynamic, Result-oriented:

This is a more self-motivated and achievement oriented culture. Those who practice entrepreneurship under this culture try to make it more of an accepting culture where new ideas, fresh talent, and calculated risks are welcomed.

Aspects such as hierarchical cultures, process-oriented cultures, and risk-taking and risk-averse cultures also make up other types of cultures. Studying these factors will assist you in picking the culture that most appropriately meets your organization’s needs.

Key Note #4: Reasons Behind the Lack of Culture

In this portion, we will uncover the reasons that hinder the establishment of a culture within an organization.

Lack of Commitment:

There is a clear link between a strong culture in an organization and its commitment and capability to deliver. Beyond these factors, policies and the context under which people are paid, working hours, compensation, and supervision can become too lax, which translates to chaos in culture.

Changing Leadership Styles:

When leaders change their styles too often – moving from collaborative to authoritative and vice versa – this can lose people and makes it impossible for culture to emerge.

Inconsistent Actions:

Inconsistent behavior has to do with some leaders talking collaboration only to reward people individually. This lack of consistency undermines the desired culture.

Hiring Impacts Culture:

A hiring policy that is not reflective of the organizational culture can negatively impact performance. An aggressive person may perform well under an individualistic work culture but poorly under a collaborative culture.

Wrong Rewards and Recognition:

The organization’s culture is also impacted negatively when employees are not rewarded as per the cultural dimensions, or in other words, systems of rewarding employees should suit the organizational culture that the organization seeks to develop.

Note 5: Methods for Cultivating a Strong Culture

Fostering a positive organizational culture takes time and effort. The following are some mechanisms to help shape culture:

Organizational Structure and Design:

The culture that you intend to develop in your organization should be a consideration when designing it.

Systems and Processes:

The cultural values of the company should be reflected in the company’s systems and processes.

Stories and Legends:

The organization’s values can be reinforced by sharing success stories that capture the accomplishments of the employees.

Formal Statements:

Create a culture and communicate it within the company. The culture should be enforced throughout the organization.

Note 6: Four Important Aspects for Supporting Culture

Preserving culture is just as important as establishing it. The following are three elements of organizational culture that is very crucial:

Leadership Attention:

A strong emphasis must exist from senior management towards anything that threaten the company’s culture. We tell stories of why the culture is important, and we enable it.

Deliberate Culture Practices:

It is crucial to give attention to the role of mentors and coaches within the organization. All training, policy development, and orientation processes for new staff should be compatible with the culture of the company, for instance, Ratan Tata at Tata Group underscores the need to show concern for the employees which is a testament of the company culture.

Recruitment and Promotion:

As a matter of policy, always give first consideration to culture when hiring or promoting employees. Even if a candidate is exceptionally competent, they can create a bad workplace environment if the culture does not suit them.

Conclusion

Like any organization, a successful company has a strong organizational culture. Companies should know which elements are critical, and what approach to use in achieving the desired culture. Building an enduring culture requires focus, unwavering actions, and intentional moves by the leaders, but the result will benefit the organization and its people.