Organizational Culture: The Foundation for Success By Dr. Kas Henry
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Organizational culture is the synthesis of values, beliefs, language, and norms that exists within an organization that ultimately shapes its thoughts as well as actions. It is quite possible for sub cultures to exist within a larger organizational culture.
- Culture is influenced by leadership and tone at the top to reflect on team dynamics
- Culture informs and shapes the strategic thinking and frames the assumptions within an organization
- Assumptions within the existing cultural framework drives organizational behavior
- Behavior over time culminates in results and employee morale
- Results and morale over time established performance standards and innovation
- Performance over time yields organizational strategic direction and change
This clearly illustrates the permeating influence of culture on business strategy and business outcomes.
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However, investing in building and harnessing an ethical organizational culture that is capable of delivering sustainable economic growth alongside building an authentic brand, market trust and employee loyalty is often overlooked because of its complex psychological component. When building the right culture is ignored, growth, change, performance, innovation and execution all become casualties.
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A recent 2-year longitudinal study conducted by Google on 180 teams demonstrated that there are 5 key elements that successfully develops high performance teams. These 5 elements are:
| 1. | Dependability
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Team members get things done on time and meet expectations. |
| 2. | Structure & Clarity | High performing teams have clear goals, plan and have well-defined roles within the group.
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| 3. | Meaning
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The work has personal significance to each member. |
| 4. | Impact
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The group believes their work is purposeful and positively impacts the greater good.
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| 5. | Psychological Safety
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A situation in which everyone is safe to take risks, voice their opinions, and ask judgment-free questions. A culture where managers provide air cover and create safe zones where employees can let down their guard.
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Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) is a process by with organizations buy and integrate other organizations. Think of it as the Brady Bunch family integration for organizations where “His” and “Hers” brought together to create the new “Theirs”. This is a grave time of transformation for organizations and getting the new organizational culture just right is vital for the viability of the new entity.
During growth, steady or maturity stages of an organization this same organizational culture plays a vital role. Employee morale, innovation, learning and growing are all positive aspects that can come about only in a safe zone culture. These are not metrics measured in spreadsheets but built though deep understanding of human psychology. Building an organization with a positive culture therefore requires the leadership to be decisive in eliminating toxic elements and personalities before the cancerous nature of their negative impacts take root to rot the organization from the inside out.
I invite you to join me on August 3rd to explore the various aspects of organizational culture through the use of specific examples with my guest William R. Stark, Practice Leader and M&A of Maverick LLC. You will be sure to enjoy listening in on the conversation and use the experience based guidance to getting your own cultural change just right!
